Golden girl: Lady Vikings’ King repeats as area’s top swimmer
Mount Pleasant’s Lily King continued her dominance at both the district and state levels with four more individual gold medals, plus a record-breaking time or two.
The junior’s strong season once again earned her top honors on the 2024 Herald-Standard All-Area Girls Swimming & Diving Team.
The remainder of the first-team honorees also had solid performances, including:
200 medley relay: Mount Pleasant.
200 freestyle: Lily King, Mount Pleasant.
200 IM: Sydney Boyd, Elizabeth Forward.
50 freestyle: Kiersten O’Connor, Mount Pleasant.
Diving: Rayna Wisneski, Mount Pleasant.
100 butterfly: Natalie Noll, Ringgold.
100 freestyle: Lily King, Mount Pleasant.
500 freestyle: Kallee Maloy, Connellsville.
200 freestyle relay: Mount Pleasant.
100 backstroke: Kiersten O’Connor, Mount Pleasant.
100 breaststroke: Ava Bosetti, Belle Vernon/Hannah Foster, Uniontown.
400 freestyle relay: Mount Pleasant.
MOST OUTSTANDING PERFORMER: Lily King, Mount Pleasant.
NEWCOMER OF THE YEAR: Megan Shusteric, Belle Vernon.
COACHING STAFF OF THE YEAR: Mount Pleasant.
Honorable Mention: Belle Vernon, Martyna Maley, Melina Stratigos; Connellsville, Kassidy Callahan, Abigail Harvey, Madelynn Johnson; Elizabeth Forward, Allison Glessner, Brooke Yurkovich, Madison Alessio; Laurel Highlands, Addie Ciez; Mount Pleasant, Kaylie Korpiel, Maddie Barrick, Lainey Brown, Riley Shinsky, Ella Paul; Ringgold, Emily Carpeal; Uniontown, Joss Rutter.
NOTES: King didn’t miss a stroke in her junior season with the North Carolina State recruit adding four individual gold medals to her trophy case. She broke her PIAA record in the 100 freestyle and won gold in the 200 freestyle with a 1½-second cushion. King anchored the Lady Vikings’ 200 medley relay team of O’Connor, Korpiel and Barrick to a PIAA gold medal and a bronze in the 400 freestyle relay with Brown, Shinsky and Barrick. … King broke her WPIAL record in winning the 200 freestyle gold medal and reset the district record time with her victory in the 100 freestyle … She added a third gold with a first-place finish in the 200 medley relay and won bronze in the 400 freestyle relay. … O’Connor, also a junior, won WPIAL gold in the 50 freestyle and a district silver medal in the 100 backstroke. She won PIAA gold in the 50 freestyle and took the bronze medal in the 100 backstroke. … The Lady Vikings’ 200 freestyle relay finished ninth in the state after winning the B final. … Sandy Felice and her staff led the Lady Vikings to the PIAA Class AA team title and WPIAL silver medal. … Local swimmers won four golds, a silver, two bronze and a total of 11 medals in the WPIAL meet. … The PIAA total was four gold medals, a bronze and a fourth-place finish. … Shusteric had a noteworthy freshman season with a WPIAL eighth-place finish in the 200 freestyle and seventh in the 200 medley relay with Maley, Bosetti and Stratigos. She also placed 11th in the 100 butterfly in the district meet. … Bosetti finished sixth in the 100 breaststroke in the WPIAL championship. … Noll dropped nearly two seconds in the WPIAL finals to finish seventh in the 100 butterfly. The junior finished fourth in the WPIAL 100 backstroke. … Maloy, a freshman, dropped nine seconds off her WPIAL seed time for a 12th-place finish in the 500 freestyle.