By Ronald Hanaki
Sports Editor
The PSAC Swimming Championships took place from Feb. 16 to Feb. 19 in York, Pa. Junior Annie Fagan led the Warriors by setting new school records in the 50-yard and 100-yard freestyle events.
On the first day, Fagan swam the 50 free in a school record-breaking time of 23.87 seconds and finished in fourth place overall.
On the fourth and final day, Fagan swam the 100 free in a new record time of 52.84 seconds and finished the event in seventh place.
The Warrior relay team also came up big on the first day. ESU’s 200 medley relay team finished the event in sixth place. Their time of 1:48.65 was only 0.13 of a second off of the school record.
Freshman Tarah Killane swam the 1,000 free in a personal best time of 10:58.01 and finished in 19th place.
Senior Kelly Buyaskas swam the 100 breaststroke in a personal best time of 1:08.77, capturing 21st place.
Juniors Kate Zimmerman and Allison Cardow finished the 200 IM in 21st and 23rd places respectively.
On the second day, Zimmerman swam the 400 IM in 4:44.08 for 16th place.
Freshman Olivia Lukshides swam the 200 freestyle in 1:56:01 for 17th place in the event. Her time was only 0.12 of a second behind the school record time of 1:55.89 set by ESU swimming legend Ashleigh Podhayny last season.
The Warriors finished the 200 free relay in eighth place.
Zimmerman continued her heroics on the third day. She swam the 100 breaststroke in 1:07.10 for 10th place.
On the last day of the event, Lukshides completed her banner freshman campaign by swimming the 100 free in 53.90 seconds for 14th place. She actually swam faster in the preliminary heat completing the event in 53.69 seconds.
Zimmerman and junior Shirley Samson finished the 200 breaststroke event in 14th and 20th places respectively.
ESU’s relay team of senior Victoria Gurdak, Fagan, Buyaskas and Lukshides swam the 400 free relay in 3:34.81 for eighth place.
Overall, the Warriors scored 402 points for ninth place. This is ESU’s fifth straight ninth place finish.
Women’s swimming powerhouse West Chester University won the championship with 1,817 points. Bloomsburg University was second with 1,073.5 points.
Email Ronald at:
rhanaki@live.esu.edu