By: Jewel Dickerman
On Saturday February 17, the Wallenpaupack Area High School Swim Team went to Scranton High School to compete in the Les Richard Championship Swim Meet. The female swimmers who participated were Zoee Stuckey, Delaney Donnovan, Samira Feller, Kaci Hackett, Alexa Laing, Theodora Whitehouse, Sherry Aliotta, Katherine Pettinato, Dana Cenusa, AnnaLee Protasiewicz, Sophie Harmuth, Maeve Creamer, Hunter Myers, Emily Sterner, Adria Malinchak, Jillian Tait, Carmella Coyle, Isabella Coyle, Kyla Story, and Ciara Dennis. The male swimmers who participated were Grady Hearn, Christian Vargo, Ware Stuckey, Michael Passenti, Jasper Hathaway, Jacob Eckes, Christopher Peet, Jack Duggan, and Krystchian Wills.
With such a big event coming up, I had asked Mrs. Vazquez if the swim team did anything different in practice. Mrs. Vazquez said, “In preparation for this meet, we have been focusing on technique to try to drop times. We have been in our “taper” phase in preparation for this meet which means we reduce the volume and intensity of our workouts so that our anaerobic threshold increases.”
This obviously paid off because, as Mrs. Vazques said, “Out of our 62 individual events that we swam, we had PRs (Personal records) in 46 of those events.”
There were various accomplishments throughout the entire meet for the girls and boys. For the Girls 200 Medley Relay, Zoe Stuckey, Delaney Donovan, Samira Feller, and Kaci Hackett got fourth place.
The Boys 200 Medley Relay consisting of Grady Hearn, Christian Vargo, Ware Stuckey, and Michael Passenti got fifth place.
Zoee Stuckey received sixth place in the Girls 200 Freestyle, Ware Stuckey took second place in the Boys 200 Freestyle, and he also took fourth in the Boys 100 Butterfly.
Ciara Dennis, Hunter Myers, Alexa Laing, and Delaney Donovan won sixth place in the Girls 200 Freestyle Relay.
Michael Passenti, Jacob Eckes, Christian Vargo, and Ware Stuckey got fifth place in the Boys 200 Freestyle Relay.
Zoee Stuckey won third place in the Girls 100 Backstroke.
Lastly, Kaci Hackett, Ciara Dennis, Samira Feller, and Zoee Stuckey got fifth place in the Girls 400 Freestyle Relay.
The team did awesome especially since this is, as coach Vazquez stated, “An open invitational designed to give athletes one last opportunity to drop time before Districts.”
Congratulations to our swim team and their hard work!
