South Fayette’s Poe settles for 2nd at WPIAL swimming
PITTSBURGH – Zoe Poe dropped seven seconds off her seed time but that was not enough for the South Fayette senior to defend her title in the Class 3A girls 500-yard freestyle Friday at the WPIAL Swimming Championships held at Pitt’s Trees Pool.
Poe was bested by North Allegheny’s Claire Bacu, a sophomore, who touched the wall in a winning time of 4:57.82.
Poe finished in 5:00.17.
South Fayette teammate Maddie Berg was eighth.
Peters Township had a pair of fourth-place finishes in Class 3A. Loren Optiz was fourth in the 100 backstroke and the Indians Amy Komoroski, who had a strong championships, placed fourth in the 100 freestyle.
The Peters Township girls placed ninth in the team standings with 103 points. South Fayette was 11th (74.5), Trinity was 22nd (9) and Canon-McMillan was 23rd (8.5).
North Allegheny won the girls team title with 477.5 points while Fox Chapel was the 3A boys team champion with 295 points.
Peters Township freshman Isaac Lee was ninth in the Class 3A boys 100 freestyle.
Ringgold had another strong day in the pool.
The Rams finished 10th in the Class 2A boys team standings with 95.5 points. Indiana won the title with 302 points. Ringgold’s girls team placed 17th with 56 points. Kiski won the championship with 218.
The top finisher on the day from Ringgold was Natalie Noll, who had a fourth-place showing in the 100 backstroke with a time of 59.31. Mount Pleasant’s Kiersten O’Connor was the winner in 55.37.
A trio of Ringgold boys swimmers had top-10 finishes. Gionni Traeger placed 10th in the 100 freestyle, teammate Tyler George was 10th in the 100 backstroke and Brandon Nguyen placed 10th in the 100 breaststroke.
The combination of Traeger, George, Nguyen and Benjamin Carpeal gave Ringgold a ninth-place finish in the 400 freestyle relay.
Belle Vernon’s Ava Bosetti finished in sixth place in the 100 breaststroke, finishing in 1;08.74. The leopards’ girls team placed 14th with 66 points.