Shore, Haven, And Ridgway Tangle In Tri-Meet

Jersey Shore's YMCA swim meet with State College and Lock Haven's meet with Juniata Valley were cancelled yesterday because of the snow storm.  As a result, there are no reports for today on those events but it is a chance to review some of the excitement from last week's meet between Jersey Shore, Lock Haven, and Ridgway.

It was only fitting that last weekend's opening YMCA swim season was a mix of old and new.

The old central Pennsylvania YMCA Swim League (CPYSL) merged with several teams from the Keystone YMCA Swim League to form the new Central Keystone YMCA Swim League. Traditional CPYSL foes, Jersey Shore and Lock Haven, met up with newcomer Ridgeway for a tri-meet at Lock Haven University's Zimmerli Pool.

Old or new, there were plenty of fast times and several swimmers that made YMCA Districts in their first swims of the long season as Lock Haven went on to win both meets; 6-4 over Shore and 9-0 vs. Ridgeway. Jersey Shore split the meet with an 8-1 win vs. Ridgeway.

   

Two of the major contested age groups were between the girls' 14-and-unders and the boys' 15-and-overs.

Shore’s Olivia Kurtz swims the butterfly leg of

the 200 yard medley relay.

Bill Crowell/The Express

In the girls' 13-and-over age group, Shore was able to secure a 66-51 win over Lock Haven as the black and orange were able to bookend the individual races with wins in the relays. Lock Haven won five individual events (Emma Butzler in the 200 and 500 freestyle, 100 fly, and 200 backstroke and Olivia McGhee in the 400-yard individual medley (IM)) to Shore's four (Sam Keegan in the 100 and 200 breaststroke, Gabbie Moore in the 100 backstroke and Olivia Kurtz in the 50-yard freestyle). Those three from Shore, plus Kendra White, started and closed their racing day not only by winning the 200 freestyle and medley relays, but making YMCA district qualifying times.

The Lock Haven YMCA Loggerheads (left) celebrate

their close victory against the Jersey Shore Bullfrogs

in the men’s 200-yard medley relay.
Bill Crowell/The Express

The margin of victory was much smaller with the 15-and-over boys as Lock Haven held on to win 58-51 against Jersey Shore. Many of the races were tightly contested and it started in their first match-up; the 200 medley relay. Shore's Cody Schwoyer opened up a slight lead over Lock Haven's Brandon Kibler in the backstroke leg, but Lock Haven breaststroker, Ethan Dale, eliminated the gap by catching and passing Shore's Zack Lehman. Tyler Sheets and Nolan Dale held onto the lead over Shore's Luke Engel and Evan Moore in the fly and freestyle legs to win the relay by less than half a second. With the relays pushing each other hard, both qualified for districts by a healthy twenty seconds.

Lock Haven's Sheets and Shore's Engel were just getting started after their match-up in the opening relay. They met again in the 50-yard freestyle where Sheets was able to best Engel by 16/100s of a second. Their final dual occurred in the 100-yard butterfly where Engel was able to touch the wall first by over a second. Both were pushed hard enough to qualify for districts in the 100 fly.L

Lock Haven captured an additional five individual events (Kibler in the 200 yard backstroke and IM, Ethan Dale in the 100 and 200 breaststroke, and Sheets in the 100-yard freestyle) to Shore's other two individual wins (Schwoyer in the 100 backstroke and 200 freestyle).

Full results can be found here.

Jersey Shore and Lock Haven meet up again on Jan. 25 for a dual meet at the Jersey Shore High School pool.

Tyler Cygan of Lock Haven competes

in the 100-yard freestyle

Bill Crowell/The Express