Ridley’s Rudy knows resilience is key

LEWISBURG >> It wasn’t long ago that Ridley’s Gab Rudy was a freshman phenom, bursting onto the high school scene and besting swimmers three years older with effortless ease.
Now a junior, with a summer of vetting college suitors on the horizon, Rudy is still jockeying among the state’s elite, and the benefit of experience allows her a glimpse into the process that churns through the PIAA Championships.
Over the two-day meet at Bucknell University, standouts like yesteryear’s star rookie Maddie Hart of Haverford can battle for a title one heat removed from this year’s freshman luminary, Penncrest’s Claire Walsh, announcing her arrival with a medal.
The unbroken supply of talent, particularly from the ludicrously deep District One contingent, provides a test. Walsh, for instance, proved in her first season that she’s worthy of going toe-to-toe with imposing senior Siena Salvaggio of Parkland, whom Walsh nearly edged in taking silver in the 50 freestyle.
But the next step, as Rudy knows, is internalizing the early success and synthesizing a plan for the second act, once the novelty and “she’s a freshman” chants have faded.
“It does put a lot of pressure, because it shows that now since I’m a junior, a lot of the freshmen are coming up from different schools that are a lot faster than when I was a freshman,” said Rudy, who made B finals in both the 200 individual medley and 100 breaststroke. “It’s a lot of pressure because other girls are going 1:03s in the 100 breast, and I’m not there yet. It’s like, when am I going to go 1:03? And it kind of sucks. It’s a lot scarier to think that it’s a faster class coming up, so it’s a lot of pressure.”
Rudy possesses the mental fortitude to tackle that conundrum. The days of magic-sounding time drops are in the past, so Rudy has resolved to chip away. She went from 1:05.49 in the 100 breast at districts, busting her nagging 1:06 rut, to 1:05.29 in prelims and 1:05.18 in finals. Taken together, it’s a significant reason for encouragement.
“It does get really frustrating,” she said. “… You try so hard for something and you’re like, ‘Why am I still stuck on that? I try so hard for this and why does it keep happening?’”
The pressure is magnified by the devilish depth of District One. While the state meet lacked the high-end speed of record-setting years past (recall the Meaghan Raab-Emily Cameron-Christina Leander-Leah Smith record-breaking axis of three years ago) it more than compensated with depth, and the nexus of that density was District One.
The district supplied double-digit qualifiers in each of the nine individual events, topping out at an astounding 15 in the 200 IM. District One contributed at least nine squads for each relay, the max of 11 in the 200 free. With five automatic places allocated by district finish, six of the eight at-large time qualifiers were gobbled up by District One.
Only Salvaggio (District 11) in the sprints prevented a clean sweep of District One champs, including Hart in the 100 butterfly. The area supplied all three relay champs (Pennridge twice plus North Penn), the team champ (North Penn), three of the top four in team scoring and the Most Outstanding Swimmer (Avon Grove’s Olivia Paoletti).
Delco’s portion of that success ran the gamut. Hart and Strath Haven’s Frances Resweber, who was 10th in the 200 free and second in the 500, are seniors whose ability to progress against the clock has persisted through the years.
Young swimmers like Rudy and Georgia Apostolu of Springfield, both of whom made two B finals this year, show the same promise. The growth is more pronounced with Radnor’s Julia Cullen, who rode her freshman momentum to third in the 100 fly last year but was disappointed to languish in the B final of the event Wednesday night. A day later, she dropped time in the 100 free, to take 10th.
When all is said and done at the end of Rudy’s career at this point next year, it’ll be that resilience that is the true measure of her accomplishments.
“It’s just that you’ll get there at some point, whether it’s college or you know you’ll get over it at any time,” Rudy said. “You just have to get over it.”