It’s not a given. Melissa Leonard knows that.
But if she can make the seedings stand up this week, the record-setting Dallas senior may very well leave the PIAA Swimming and Diving Championships at Bucknell University’s Kinney Natatorium with three state medals — almost matching the cache of hardware she’s already pulled from the state pool through her spectacular high school career.
“I’m definitely nervous, but also very excited,” said Leonard, who will swim for Ursinus next season. “This is the first time I’ve been seeded this high in both (individual) events.”
Those events run the full range of state waters, where Leonard is the No. 3 seed in the Class 2A field in the 200 freestyle — where she’s coming off a record performance at the District 2 championships — and is slotted at No. 4 in the 500 freestyle.
Those seeds are based on times from each district’s championships, where Leonard set a new District 2 standard by swimming the 200 in 1:54.10 and won the 500 in 5:21.49. She is also part of a Dallas 400 freestyle relay team that enters the state field at No. 7.
“It’s definitely more of an honor,” Leonard said. “I know I tend to put a lot of pressure on myself. But I don’t feel like I have to get those spots. I know I’m capable of doing that. I know I can go in there and swim that time. But there are so many fast girls there.
“I have to be more relaxed, and just go and swim.”
Others gunning for the PIAA podium when Class 2A competitors go off Friday and Saturday include Wyoming Seminary’s Skylar Roerig, who enters the pool at No. 4 in the 100 fly, fifth in the 100 free and as the anchor of the No. 3 400 freestyle relay team and the No. 5 200 freestyle relay; Holy Redeemer’s Greta Walting, who enters the pool at fifth in 100 breaststroke and eighth in the 50 freestyle and is part of a 200 medley relay that’s also fifth; and Dallas diver Mia Reinert, who is seeded ninth.
Dallas also has high hopes in the Class 2A boys competition, where Dennis Dukinas is seeded fifth in the 100 breaststroke and fellow Mountaineers swimmer Shane Szczecinski is sixth in the 200 freestyle and has a chance to crack the top eight in the 500 freestyle, where he’s No. 10.
It all starts with Class 3A action that begins Wednesday and continues Thursday, when Wyoming Valley West’s three-time District 2 gold medalist diver Sophia Ginochetti enters at No. 6 and will be trying to come up with her first state medal after just missing one last year with a ninth-place finish.
Leonard has four of them over the past three years — a fourth-place relay medal and three in the 500, where her highest state finish was sixth place.
“Surprisingly, none in the 200,” Leonard said.
But she never went into states off a district record in the 200 before and was never this high on the PIAA heat sheets entering her favorite event.
“Just because it’s shorter,” Leonard said, picking the 200 over the 500 for the swim she likes best, “just because it’s shorter. But there are things I like about each. I remember I was seeded, like, 20th (at states) in the 200 my freshman year.”
Since then, regular trips to the PIAA Championships have relaxed her, as Leonard watched her confidence and performances grow since that first foray into state waters.
”I’m not freaking out,” Leonard said.
At one time, she was.
Her first visit to Kinney Natatorium — with two warmup pools running horizontally centered by the longer, diagonal pool for racing and lifeguards sitting high on a stand on both sides — proved a little unnerving, to say the least.
“The pool there is so different than any pool I’ve ever swam at,” Leonard said. “It has three different pools in one pool. Very different. And the atmosphere is so different.”
At the same time, Leonard is different, too. She’s a district record-setting swimmer now. And that could make the biggest difference in how her final high school finishes turn out.
“I know how this goes,” Leonard said. “I know how the meet runs, what events we run, how it’s going to be set up.
“I think that’s an advantage.”
