Winning with a heavy heart
PITTSBURGH — The heavy heart Andrew Pierre was swimming with Thursday did not weigh him down.
Pierre, whose father, Joseph, died unexpectedly in September, won the Class AA boys 200-yard freestyle for the second straight year.
“My dad was on my mind today, 100 percent,” Pierre said. “He was a great influence on me becoming a swimmer and I wanted to win today for him.”
Pierre said his father was dedicated to supporting his athletic endeavors.
“He didn't miss a single one of my meets,” he said. “Last year when I won two (WPIAL) titles, he was the first person I saw when I looked up into the stands. He was ecstatic. He came down and took my picture, he was always taking pictures. It was different this year, not seeing him after my event.”
People deal with loss in many ways, but Mars coach Todd Slobodnyak said he wasn't surprised that Pierre stuck with swimming in this, his senior year.
“I think he realized that this season was his last chance to do something important in high school swimming,” the coach said. “He did everything he needed to do.”
Pierre's time of one minute, 42.19 seconds was also good enough to break the school record of 1:43.89, set by Francis Folz. The latter said he was able to see where he was during the race.
“I could see the kid in lane four (New Castle's Zach Bell) was fading and lane six (Deer Lakes' Adam Morrison) was right there and I figured he was going to finish strong. I knew what I had to do.”
Morrison finished runner-up, .33 seconds behind Pierre.
Knoch's boys are in sixth place in the team standings with 100 points. Indiana leads with 123 points.
The Knights earned four medals on Thursday, most notably a 4th-place finish in the 200 freestyle relay.
The foursome of Zach Wilson, Caden Traggiai, Braden Zukowski and Matt Cummings swam a school-record time of 1:30.47.
Girls
It had been quite a while since Freeport had a relay team earn a medal at WPIALs.
The Yellowjackets broke that streak with a resounding effort in the 200 medley relay, placing second to Indiana with a time of 1:51.45.
The quartet of Ariana Clark, Alexis Schrecongost, Madison Moretti and Isabella Parks also broke the school record with the effort.
“I have been the coach for eight years and this is the highest we've placed in a relay in that time, maybe even longer,” said Freeport coach Nikki Heasley. “I knew this group had potential, but I also knew some of the bigger teams would drop a lot of time. I was figuring we could get sixth. I was pretty excited when we took second.”
