Stephen Rowland of Upper Moreland finished his high school swim career with an eighth place medal in the 200-yard freestyle at the PIAA Class AA championships, held Wednesday and Thursday at Bucknell University.
Rowland clocked in at 1:45.03.
“It’s always really exciting to win a medal at this meet,” said Rowland, who is headed to West Point after graduation.
“This meet is a lot quicker than districts or Suburbans or anything else you’re used to so you’ve really got to swim well at prelims and finals and you don’t have to do that anywhere else.
“I’ve done this before, so that experience helped me.”
He also finished 11th in the 500 freestyle in 4:50.19.
“I was a little disappointed to not be in the medal heat for the 500 but at least I got to the consols and I had one more night swim,” he said. “I still have four more years of swimming in college so I’m looking forward to that.
“For me it was important to get to this meet, swim well and leave on a high note and that’s what I did. It’s a good ending for me.”
He made it to the state meet despite being ill during the District One competition.
“At that point, our goal was just to swim through being sick and get to states,” said
Melanie Rowland, the Upper Moreland coach and his mother.
“We realized that if he qualified he had nearly two weeks to get better and so we’re very happy that he was able to get this far.”
Rowland, DJ Chrobocinski, Kevin Holst and Stew Conard took 18th in the 200 freestyle relay (1:31.99).
Conard was 16th in the 200 individual medley (2:03.18) and 29th in the 100 butterfly (55.82).
Rounding out the boys’ team for the Golden Bears, senior Pat McPeak finished 17th in diving with a score of 258.05, just missing the finals. He was 18th after the preliminaries (163.55).
The Upper Moreland girls also had a medal winner.
Freshman Natalie Szopo finished fourth in diving (368.90). She was seventh after the preliminaries and moved up to fifth after the semifinals.
Also for the girls, Sam Conard was 21st in the 500 freestyle (5:20.16) and 24th in the 200 freestyle (2:00.64).
Springfield’s Hugh Pedley finished 14th in the 50 freestyle (21.90) with teammate Jake Oeschger right behind in 15th place (22.00).
Pedley was also 14th in the 100 freestyle (47.87).
Also for Springfield, RJ Langlois was 28th in the 100 breaststroke (1:03.69).
Pedley and Oeschhger were joined by John Hacking and Sal Giordano to take 14th in the
400 freestyle relay (3:20.03).
The Springfield girls’ foursome of Genevieve Pedley, Alexia Tomlinson, Samantha Chamberlin and Brigid Clark took 19th in the 400 freestyle relay (3:46.95).
Upper Merion’s Taylor Mateja finished in a tie for 27th place in the 100 backstroke with Kayla Schnars of Bellefonte area. Both finished in 1:02.96.
In the team competition, Springfield’s boys finished 21st with 32 points. Upper Moreland boys were 32nd with 18 points.
Upper Moreland girls also finished 32nd with 15 points.
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