King now swimming royalty with 8 WPIAL individual gold medals
Eight individual events, eight victories.
Mount Pleasant senior Lily King capped her outstanding district swimming career with two more gold medals on Friday after also winning two on Thursday in the WPIAL Class 2A Swimming Championships at the University of Pittsburgh’s Trees Pool.
Two of those gold medals came in individual events – the 200 freestyle Thursday and the 100 freestyle Friday – giving her an amazing eight gold medals in eight such starts in her WPIAL finals career.
Thus, King heads into the PIAA championships on March 12-13 having never lost an individual event at the district meet.
Mount Pleasant also got gold-medal winning performances from seniors David Mutter in the 500 freestyle, Kiersten O’Connor in the 100 backstroke and Joseph Gardner in the 100 breaststroke.
For the second day in a row King broke a WPIAL and Trees Pool record, winning the 100 freestyle for the fourth consecutive year. Her time of 47.65 on Friday bested her own district mark of 48.21.
“Being able to win all eight individual medals is an honor,” said King, who is a North Carolina State recruit. “It’s definitely a rewarding feeling after all the hard work and time I’ve put in. It means a lot.
“I’m very happy to end my last WPIALs like this.”
King added another dominant performance later on Friday in the 400 freestyle relay, making up a four-second deficit in swimming the anchor leg to help the Lady Vikings overtake Franklin Regional for another gold medal. King followed junior Riley Shinsky, senior Maddie Barrick and junior Lainey Brown for Mount Pleasant who combined for a winning time of 3:33.46.
“She never ceases to amaze me,” Mount Pleasant swimming coach Sandy Felice said of King. “Besides being a great swimmer and a hard worker in the pool, she’s a great teammate. She’s captain of our team, a good role model. She gives little team talks. She’s a great girl.
“In fact she was asked by our AD to fill out some papers because he wanted to nominate her for a scholar-athlete award and she’s so humble, so said oh no, I’ve already got a scholarship, I don’t want to take an opportunity away from one of my teammates.
“She’s just that kind of girl, always thinking of her team.”
King gave much credit for her success to Felice.
“I owe everything I’ve accomplished to Sandy,” King said. “She has always pushed me, encouraged me, and believed in me even when I maybe didn’t believe in myself. I’m so blessed to have her as my coach.”
The Mount Pleasant girls just missed out on the team title, ending up second with 238 points to Indiana (240.50).
“We knew it was going to be close,” Felice said. “We thought we could win. We were keeping score the whole time through. It came down to the end.”
The same two teams finished first and second in the boys standings with Indiana (322.50) again finishing ahead of Mount Pleasant (261).
Mutter and O’Connor both claimed individual gold for the second straight day for Mount Pleasant.
Mutter won the 500 freestyle in 4:34.54, an event he hadn’t participated in that often, according to Felice.
“David hasn’t swum that very much,” Felice said. “We did have him swim it last year at county’s and he did well. We just thought let’s try it again. He’s a pretty strong kid.
“He pulled it out and we were very pleased. I knew he could do it and felt he would do well. It was nice to see him get first.”
O’Connor was victorious in the 100 backstroke with a time of 54.62.
“She did great,” Felice said. “I was really happy for her.”
Gardner’s winning time in the 100 breaststroke was 55.77. While he fell short of the WPIAL record, Gardner owns the PIAA mark in the event at 54.28 last year.
Two other area swimmers also medaled in the event with Laurel Highlands junior Kasey Mahoney taking third (57.15) and Belle Vernon senior Tim Reda placing seventh (1:00.83). Both also medaled on Thursday.
Southmoreland junior Allison Stinnett medaled for the second day in a row, placing second in the girls 100 breaststroke (1:03.74), just behind Knoch’s Giona Lavorini (1:03.03). Brown was fifth for Mount Pleasant (1:07.04).
Vikings junior Gunnar Probst earned a bronze medal in the boys 100 freestyle (49.84) with Belle Vernon junior Brady Malekovich taking sixth (49.40), giving both two individual medals in two days.
Albert Gallatin freshman Caylee Psenicska reached the medal stand with a sixth-place finish in the girls 500 freestyle (5:20.20).
Shinsky gave the Lady Vikings two medal winners in the 100 freestyle by placing eighth (54.54). She also medaled Thursday.
Mount Pleasant was fifth in the boys 400 freestyle relay with junior Cody Fusco, sophomore Lucas Poole, senior Seth Painter and Mutter turning in a time of 3:19.98.
Belle Vernon had the second-best showing among area girls teams by finishing 11th (85) in the 34-team field. Southmoreland was 18th (32), Uniontown 20th (20), Albert Gallatin 22nd (19) and Laurel Highlands 30th (7).
Belle Vernon was ninth (90) in the boys team standings with Laurel Highlands 16th (39), Uniontown 21st (27) and Southmoreland 28th (2).
Felice was pleased with Mount Pleasant’s overall showing at the two-day event.
“I thought it went fantastic,” Felice said. “I’m proud of them all. We had our sights set for states and I didn’t expect them to swim this well at WPIALs.
“I’m looking forward to more success at states.”
As is King.
“I’m feeling excited going into states,” King said. “I’m happy with how we did at WPIALs and I think it has put us all in a good mindset for PIAAs.”