WILKES-BARRE — If the Dallas boys swimming and diving dynasty was not apparent already, the sheer distance between first- and second-place in the team standings would punctuate the point.
The Mountaineers garnered their third consecutive District 2 Class 2A Boys Swimming & Diving title Saturday in resounding fashion. Dallas finished with a program-best 285 points, beating out runner-up Wyoming Seminary by 98.5 points.
“It’s mind-blowing that this happened my senior year when I was a captain,” Dallas senior Shane Szczecinski said. “I think this is the most points we ever accumulated. There were people that weren’t feeling great and gave everything that they had.”
With the team title in the bag, Dallas earned an individual and relay gold medal to seal the victory. Szczecinski won the 500 free, and the 400 free relay capped off the weekend.
Szczecinski dropped more than nine seconds off of his seed time to take first in the distance event. After just the first 50 yards, Szczecinski was four seconds ahead of the competition with 18 more laps to swim. He finished in 4:53.03 to win over first-year teammate Tommy Doran by 6.62 seconds.
“Yesterday, I didn’t even PR in my 200,” said Szczecinski, who won the event in 2018. “I knew today that I had to work on some stuff. I had to be aware the whole time of what I’m doing. I was able to pace off one of my teammates, just some stuff that we did in practice.”
At the end of the afternoon, he teamed with Jason Puza, JR Redmond and Dennis Dukinas to win the 400 free relay with a time of 3:20.59. The Mountaineers were neck-and-neck with Wyoming Seminary before Dukinas held off Nansen Wang down the stretch to win by seven-tenths of a second.
For his part, Dukinas was second in the 100 breast in 59.17 seconds. The Mountaineers used their depth to rack as many points from top to bottom. Freshman Stephen Miller dropped 11 seconds off his 200 free time to finish in 12th place.
“Each year, the boys don’t want to drop the ball,” Dallas coach Romayne Mosier said. “It was, ‘OK, we’re going to keep this going; we’re not going to drop the ball.’ I think that momentum that they created as a team is what makes them coachable because they want to do well for themselves and not let their team down.”
The Dallas girls were runner-ups to a powerful Scranton Prep squad in the team standings.
Dallas had three notable performances in the 500 free. Melissa Leonard’s late comeback in the 500 free fell short by 1.3 seconds, clocking in at 5:05.88 for second place. Out of the slowest heat, freshman Olivia Sitkowski erased 26 seconds off her seed time to sneak into seventh place from the No. 18 seed. Seeded 19th, Amanda Puza trimmed 23 seconds off her season best to take 13th in 5:55.75.
Roerig’s gold leads Sem
Wyoming Seminary junior Skylar Roerig touched first from the No. 3 lane to win the 100 free. Roehrig cut down 2.42 seconds off her best to win the race by nearly a second over better-seeded sprinters that included Scranton Prep’s Haley Thier and Valley View’s Lily Nemeth.
Roehrig (52.33) and teammate Kylee Kolbicka (53.29) finished first and second place. At the midway point, Roerig and Kolbicka were in a dead heat with Thier trailing by eight-hundredths of a second.
“I feel like I could have started a little bit faster but my second lap was good,” Roerig said. “We are all really close friends. I swam with everyone in the top heat actually. I knew it was going to be a close race, but also that it was going to be a fun one.”
Kolbicka and Roerig bookended a 400 free relay with Saskia Papsova and Aviah Dahlgren to take first place and earn a spot at the PIAA Championships. The Blue Knights’ 400 free relay registered a 3:34.9 performance.
On the boys side, Sem’s Wang placed second in the 100 free in 49.49 seconds.
WVC swimmers await PIAA selections
Holy Redeemer’s Emily Mahler and Greta Walting will await whether they earn a spot to Lewisburg after a pair of second-place swims. Mahler was the runner-up in the 100 back in 59.4 seconds. Walting finished her final district competition with a second-place 100
breast outing, touching the wall in 1:05.21.
On the boys side, Lake-Lehman’s Logan Kuhar garnered a silver medal in the 100 back in 55.4 seconds.
District 2 Class 2A Girls Championship
Team Standings – 1. Scranton Prep (SP) 347, 2. Dallas (DAL) 237, 3. Wyoming Seminary (SEM) 174, 4. Holy Redeemer (HR) 171; 5. Valley View (VV) 92; 6. Tunkhannock (TUN) 90; 7. Berwick (BER) 85; 8. Dunmore (DUN) 55; 9. West Scranton (WS) 28; 10. Holy Cross (HC) 21; 11. Elk Lake (EL) 20; 12. Wyoming Area (WA) 18; 13. North Pocono (NP) 15; 14. Lake-Lehman (LL) 8; 15. Carbondale (CAR) 3.
100 Free – 1. SEM Skylar Roerig 52.33, 2. SEM Kylee Kolbicka 53.29, 3. SP Haley Thier 53.74, 4. HR Julia Bucknavage 53.96, 5. TUN Camryn Rogers 54.31, 6. VV Lily Nemeth 54.99, 7. SP Nicole Iriza, 8. DAL Abbey Sutzko, 9. SP Carly Shofield, 10. DAL Gabby Krochta, 11. DAL Jennifer Leonard, 12. HC Alex Tomaine
500 Free – 1. SP Ryleigh Collins 5:04.58, 2. DAL Melissa Leonard 5:05.88, 3. DUN Maddie Healey 5:13.9, 4. SP Corinne McCall 5:18.38, 5. DAL Emma Thomas 5:19.45, 6. BER Mia Doll 5:21.49, 7. DAL Olivia Sitkowski, 8. HR Emma Humm, 9. SP Taylor Newton, 10. SEM Abby Price, 11. SP Nicole Benjamin, 12. SEM Claire Stretanski
100 Back – 1. SP Allison Prushinski 58.36, 2. HR Emily Mahler 59.4, 3. Aviah Dahlgren 1:00.67, 4. NP Hope Gilgallon 1:02.47, 5. DAL Gabby Spaciano 1:02.53, 6. SP Cara McCall 1:02.68, 7. DAL Jennifer Leonard, 8. VV Camdyn Jervis, 9. DAL Caitlin Curran, 10. SP Ava Forgione, 11. HR Emily Duris, 12. TUN Emma Holdredge
100 Breast – 1. SP Lauren Schofeld 1:03.91, 2. HR Greta Walting 1:05.21, 3. SP Olivia Turner Havira 1:06.93, 4. DAL Gina Kerrick 1:09.51, 5. VV Lily Nemeth 1:09.54, 6. SP Nicole Iriza 1:10.06, 7. SEM Saskia Papsova, 8. HR Cate Blaum, 9. SP Erica Prushinski, 10. VV Nicole Chiricos, 11. TUN Alexis Hutchins, 12. DAL Sydney Bittner
400 Free Relay – 1. SEM (Kylee Kolbicka, Saskia Papsova, Aviah Dahlgren, Skylar Roerig) 3:34.9; 2. DAL (Gabby Spaciano, Gabby Krochta, Abbey Sutzko, Melissa Leonard) 3:39.18; 3. SP (Olivia Havira Turner, Haley Thier, Lauren Schofield, Carly Schofield) 3:41.76; 4. BER (Courtney Turowski, Sophia Guerriero, Mia Doll, Sydney Lloyd) 3:57.73; 5. HR (Emily Duris, Hannah Kern, Jordyn Dutko, Emma Humm) 3:58.49; 6. VV (Della Noon, Rina Zambetti, Hailey O’Leary, Camryn Leary) 4:00.18; 7. TUN; 8. EL; 9. LL; 10. HC; 11. WA; 12. WS
District 2 Class 2A Boys Championship
Team Standings – 1. Dallas (DAL) 285, 2. Wyoming Seminary (SEM) 186.5; 3. Scranton Prep (SP) 176; 4. Holy Redeemer (HR) 147; 5. Tunkhannock (TUN) 128; 6. Abington Heights (AH) 120.5; 7. Lake-Lehman (LL) 91; 8. Elk Lake (EL) 76; 9. Lakeland (LAK) 47; 10. Valley View (VV) 39; 11. West Scranton (WS) 18; 12. Berwick (BER) 17; 13. Wyoming Area (WA) 8
100 Free – 1. SP Nathan Thayer 48.84, 2. SEM Nansen Wang 49.49, 3. AH Jarred Ocwieja 49.76, 4. HR Chris Schell 49;.88, 5. EL Kevin Noldy 50.07, 6. SEM Richie de Luna 50.34, 7. SEM Thomas Rydzewski, 8. DAL JR Redmond, 9. DAL David Rinehimer, 10. VV Austin Langel, 11. DAL Jason Puza, 12. LAK Nico Spataro
500 Free – 1. DAL Shane Szcecinski 4:53.03, 2. DAL Tommy Doran 4:59.65, 3. SEM Jakub Baur 5:05.27, 4. SP Ethan Haggerty 5:05.56, 5. HR Adam Smith 5:09.5, 6. LL Tanner Manzoni 5:22.69, 7. DAL Jack Stout, 8. AH Kevin Guditus, 9. TUN Julien Madus, 10. AH Adam Vale, 11. LAK Nathan Micknick, 12. DAL Alex Derome
100 Back – 1. LAK Peter Kawash 51.84, 2. LL Logan Kuhar 55.4, 3. EL Kevin Noldy 56.21, 4. DAL Jason Puza 58.43, 5. SP Alex Iannone 59.55, 6. SEM Gabe de Luna 1:00.19, 7. DAL Kevin Allen, 8. HR Josh Mayerski, 9. TUN Jordan Wagner, 10. HR Matt Dihn, 11. SEM Mikel
Salas-Warner, 12. BER Robbie Hubley
100 Breast – 1. SP Joey Cholish 58.38, 2. DAL Dennis Dukinas 59.17, 3. VV Austin Langel 1:04.74, 4. SEM Gabe de Luna 1:07.67, 5. DAL Alex Derome 1:10.36, 6. DAL Gary Weaver 1:11.3; 7. HR John Evans, 8. LL Jackson Kuhar, 9. AH Bryan Lear, 10. AH Charlie Puksta, 11. SP Gordon Kopa, 12. SEM Charlie Wright
400 Free Relay – 1. DAL (Shane Szczecinski, Jason Puza, JR Redmond, Dennis Dukinas) 3:20.59; 2. SEM (Thomas Rydzewski, Jakob Baur, Richie de Luna, Nansen Wang) 3:21.3; 3. SP (Ethan Haggerty, Benjamin Galko, Nathan Thayer, Joey Cholish) 3:25.78; 4. HR (Eric Vogt, Matt Dihn, Adam Smith, Chris Schell) 3:27.83; 5. EL (Noah Staff, Zach Shields, Mario Mollo, Kevin Noldy) 3:37.52; 6. LL (Tanner Manzoni, Jackson Kuhar, Adam Walp, Logan Kuhar) 3:45.73; 7. AH; 8. TUN; 9. VV; 10. BER; 11. WS
