WPIAL and District 8 swimmers set for Saturday’s PIAA AA championship finals at Bucknell

By: HSSN Staff
Saturday, March 17, 2018 | 1:15 PM

Northgate junior Karen Siddoway captured a second-place medal Friday in the girls 200-yard freestyle at the PIAA Class AA swimming and diving championships at Bucknell.

Saturday evening, she goes for gold in the 100 free.

Siddoway swam to a first-place finish in the preliminaries with a time of 51.50 seconds.

She edged out Bloomsburg senior Hanna Everhart (second, 51.65) and Clearfield senior Paige Mikesell (third, 52.03) for the top spot.

The championship finals (top eight from the prelims) and consolation finals (ninth through 16th) for the boys will be 4:45 p.m., while the girls finals will be at 7:20 p.m.

On the boys side, Belle Vernon freshman Ian Shahan heads into the finals of the boys 100 backstroke seeded second after he recorded a time of 51.70 in the preliminaries.

He earned a runner-up finish in the 100 butterfly Friday.

Several other swimmers from the WPIAL and City League will compete in the championship finals. The top eight in each event after the prelims also secured PIAA medals.

For the girls, the Shady Side Academy 400 freestyle relay of Meredith Cummings, Sasha Arefyev, Heather Grune and Lindsey Grune (fourth seed); Mt. Pleasant sophomore Heather Gardner (fourth, 100 breaststroke); Obama Academy sophomore Amila Niksic (sixth, 100 back); Arefyev (fifth, 500 free); and Elizabeth forward sophomore Kaelyn McClain (seventh, 500 free) are in the championship-finals mix.

The same is true on the boys side for the Belle Vernon 400 free relay of Shahan, Tucker West, Alex Miller and Robert Spekis (eighth seed); Neshannock freshman Conner McBeth (fourth, 100 free); Mars junior Andrew Pierre (fifth, 500 free); Obama Academy junior Noah Jamison (seventh, 500 free); Quaker Valley junior Andres Hubsch (eighth, 100 back); Northgate senior Nick Madey (fourth, 100 breast); and Spekis (sixth, 100 breast).

Michael Love is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at mlove@tribweb.com or via Twitter @Mlove_Trib.

Tags: Belle Vernon, Mars, Mt. Pleasant, Northgate, Obama Academy, Shady Side Academy