Avon Grove’s Paoletti wins state gold in 200 IM
Avon Grove High School sophomore Olivia Paoletti came in to Wednesday’s session of the PIAA Swimming and Diving Championships at Bucknell University’s Kinney Natatorium as the favorite in the Girls Class AAA 200-yard IM, and she performed every bit as much in the finals.
Paoletti broke two minutes in gliding to the title in 1:59.76, easily outdistancing North Penn teammates Claudia Thamm (2:02.70) and Kailyn Evans (2:03.20).
Her teammate Emma Brinton came in fifth in 2:04.36.
“I’ve bene working on it for a really long time now, and I’ve just been chipping away at it,” Paoletti said on breaking the two-minute barrier. “To finally see the numbers on the board and to finally see all my hard work pay off is really great.”
Her previous best time was set earlier Wednesday morning after winning the prelim heat in 2:01.2.
Paoletti started out fast and pulled away on the backstroke portion and into the breaststroke.
“My best stroke is breaststroke, and my worst stroke is backstroke,” she added. “So I’ve been working a lot on my backstroke to make it better.”
Paoletti talked about winning in front of her family.
“My mom (Vicki), she gets really excited and into the race,” Paoletti said. “She says, ‘I swim the race with you,’ so I knew she was really nervous for me going into it.”
Freshman teammate Rabea Pfaff was second in the B final in 2:07.57, behind Peyton Kondis of Oakland Catholic. Downingtown East freshman Heather MacCausland finished third.
Paoletti finished the day helping Avon Grove win the B final of the 200 free relay.
“I love swimming relays with my team, and it’s very exciting to be able to end a session with a fast relay and it builds up into tomorrow’s (Thursday’s) sessions,” she said. “The excitement continues.”
In the 200 free, West Chester Henderson senior Abby Kosic placed third, behind winner Morgan Scott of Pennridge and Lauren McGrath of North Allegheny, in a time of 1:51.33.
“I tried to do it like this morning (where she was third in the prelims), take it out a little slower because this morning I took it out way too fast and died,” she said. “I tried to do that strategy, but it’s finals. Everyone wants to go out fast, so I had to pick it up the last 100. Overall, I thought it was pretty good.”
And speed along they did.
“Everyone was going fast,” she said. “They don’t pace it well. They just want to go.”
Oxford’s Morgan Curl was fifth. Unionville’s Camryn Carter was 15th overall and Rachel Hazard of Henderson was 16th.
Ann Carozza of West Chester East finished fourth in the 100 butterfly in 55.75. Madison Ledwith of Conestoga was fourth in the B final, while teammate Caroline Apathy was sixth.
Megan Keithly of Downingtown West was second in the B final in the 50 free in 23.91.
In the first event of the finals, Downingtown West placed fourth in the 200 medley relay. The foursome of Siobhan McCarthy, Madi Grenoble, Keithly and Riley Rochon stopped the clock in 1:46.35. North Penn was first, Upper St. Clair second and Mt. Lebanon placed third. Unionville finished second in the B final in 1:46.70. The squad consisted of Maura Grimes, Bridget Foote, Lindsey Hewton and Olivia Miller.
Digital First Media’s Matthew De George contributed to this story.
