Penn-Trafford’s Kalik claims 6th at PIAA diving meet

By: HSSN Staff
Monday, March 19, 2018 | 11:00 PM

For the second year in a row, Penn-Trafford junior Paige Kalik is a PIAA diving medalist.

Kalik, this year's WPIAL Class AAA champion, was one of nine divers in the field last week at Bucknell to break 400 points, and her total of 412.20 put her in sixth overall.

“I was a little nervous going through the dives, not knowing where I would end up,” said Kalik, who also took sixth at states last year.

“I got a medal, which is pretty nice. I'm pretty happy about that.”

Kalik also placed sixth at states last year.

She came to this year's competition seeded 13th and moved up to fourth after the five-dive first round. She also was sixth entering the final round.

“The scoring is really different for each district, so I kind of ignored my seed and just went in and focused on each dive one at a time,” Kalik said. “I was pretty confident I would move up.”

North Penn teammates Meghan Wentzel and Paige Burrell finished tied for the championship, each scoring 465.50 points.

Penn-Trafford swimmers came close to earning second swims in the consolation finals which went to competitors who placed ninth through 16th in the preliminaries.

Hannah Muro challenged for a second swim in the girls 100-yard backstroke, and she placed 19th with a time of 58.41 seconds, just 20 one-hundredths of a second out of the top 16.

The boys 400 freestyle relay of junior Luke Babik and seniors John Sandala, Zach Snelling and Jacob Yant placed 17th with a time of 3:13.89, less than a second away from 16th.

The 200 free relay of Babik, Sandala, Yant and sophomore Nick Graziano placed 19th (1:28.24).

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

Tags: Penn-Trafford