Daniel Boone’s Guiliano golden in 200 free on Day 1 of PIAA Swimming Championships

LEWISBURG >> For Chris Guiliano, the PIAA Class 3A swimming and diving championships started with a bang.

Guiliano, a junior at Daniel Boone, touched the wall in 1:35.81 to win the 200-yard freestyle in Wednesday’s opening day of the meet, held at Bucknell University’s Kinney Natatorium.  

“You always come into a meet thinking you have a good shot,” he said. “But this is just unbelievable.”

He was second after the preliminaries to Liam Smith of LaSalle College High, but in the finals got the better of Smith, who settled for silver (1:35.99).

“I was just swimming my own race,” Guiliano said. “Whatever happens, happens. It was really close, though. I just tried to dig in the last two laps. I was really tired at the end. I would have been happy with anything but this is obviously better.

“I just tried to improve and work on some things since prelims so it all worked out for me.”

He swims the 100 freestyle on Thursday.

“This gives me a lot of confidence, for sure,” he said.

Guiliano also led off the 200 freestyle relay for Jesse Wounderly, Jacob Santos and Justin Eves. The foursome made the consolation final, taking 15th (1:27.94).  

Dalton Fink of Owen J. Roberts collected some hardware, taking sixth in the 100 butterfly (49.67).

He then teamed up with Will Cano, Nathan VanNatter and Jonah Kasznay to finish 13th in the 200 freestyle relay (1:27.64).

Perkiomen Valley’s Jacob Replogle made the consolation final of the 200 freestyle, taking 12th (1:41.58).

Sean Lyman of Upper Perkiomen finished 18th in the 200 individual medley (1:56.49).

Methacton’s Tommy Gibbs was 21st in the 100 butterfly (51.59).

Owen Miller of Boyertown finished in a tie for 24th in the 100 butterfly with Patrick Gilhool of Liberty (52.33).

Boyertown’s 200 medley relay of Nathaniel Zimmerman, Noah Vivian, Miller and Nolan Benner wound up 26th (1:38.86).  

Brendan Baganski of Spring-Ford wound up in 14th place in the 50 freestyle (21.47).

Baganski, Sean Laing, Sam Ricci and Cory Laing teamed up to take 28th in the 200 freestyle relay (1:29.80) for the Rams.

For the girls, Mikayla Niness of Owen J. Roberts was a medal winner, taking seventh in the 50 freestyle (23.60).

The Wildcats ended the day with a 10th place finish in the 200 freestyle relay.  Niness, Lauren Zelinske, Eliana Crew and Abbey Malmstrom touched in 1:36.60.

Malmstrom was also 28th in the 200 freestyle (1:56.46).

Phoenixville’s Erini Pappas was the winner of the consolation heat in the 100 butterfly. She finished ninth (55.71).

Gabrielle McKee of Boyertown reached the consolation final of the 200 individual medley, finishing 11th 2:05.45).

Ashley Gutshall of Spring-Ford took 23rd in the 50 freestyle (24.57).