The 2016 Eastern Interscholastic Swimming and Diving Championships kicked off this morning at La Salle University with Penn Charter and Peddie displaying some explosive swims. Swimming World was on site to live stream and record the races for your viewing pleasure.
Jared Fitzergald of Peddie turned in a time of 1:40.97 to return as tonight’s top seed for the men’s 200 free. He’ll be joined by Matt Haigh of Haverford (1:41.01) and Andrew Zhugayevich of Mercersburg (1:41.10) in the top three.
Penn Charter’s Reece Whitley posted a prelims time of 1:51.39 to claim the top seed for the men’s 200 IM. Whitley’s entry time was a 1:49.43, not too far off the meet record of 1:48.10 from 1998, leaving one to wonder if tonight a new meet record will occur. Reona Yamaguchi (1:53.94) of Peddie and teammate Noah Housekeeper (1:55.94) return tonight as the second and third seed respectively.
Peddie’s Vanessa Ruiz delivered a quick 23.48 to grab the first place seed in the women’s 50 free, while Alberto Mestre of Hill took first in prelims of the men’s 50 free with a 20.55.
Episcopal’s Emma Seiberlich turned in a swift 1:50.88 to claim first in prelims of the women’s 200 free. Mercersburg Lindsay Tanner returns tonight as the second place seed with a 1:52.38, and Germantown Academy’s Karlee Carminati returns as third with a 1:53.40.
Seiberlich delivered another top time in the women’s 100 fly with a time of 55.16, a time which stands only .99 seconds off the meet record of 54.1 from 2013.
Alex Sumner of Episcopal dashed ahead of the competition in the women’s 200 IM, stopping the clock at 2:02.86. Maddie Aguirre of Agnes Irwin took second overall in prelims with a time of 2:07.29, while third went to Mercersburg’s Stephanie Downing (2:08.15).
Haverford delivered a 1-2 finish in prelims of the men’s 100 fly with Alex Borrato (50.71) and Charlie Ryan (51.09) returning as the top two seeds. Episcopal’s Ben Baturka was third with a 51.15.
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Should be noted that in the Men’s 200 Free there is only about 1/4 sec between the top 4 qualifying times with 4th only 0.13 behind 3rd. 5th and 6th place are further back. Fitzgerald swam a PR by 1.76 sec this morning while the other 3 swimmers in the top 4 all were slower than PR’s. Thus it will be a really close race this evening.