Boys drop swim meet to SL
Whitehall’s boys swim team opened its meet against Southern Lehigh with a photo-finish victory in the 200 medley relay last week at Whitehall.
Quinn Doyle, Glenn Kline, Johnny Stinner, and Cameron Herring originally placed second, but a disqualification of Solehi’s first-place foursome bumped up the Zephyrs for the win by .30 seconds.
Doyle led off with the backstroke, and Herring finished as anchor.
“To my right, I saw [Southern Lehigh] was extremely close,” said Herring. “I didn’t even breathe. I just went full-speed ahead and secured second place. Everyone was pounding on the blocks. You can’t really hear it. You can feel it...It pushes me to go a lot faster. If you’re anchor, everybody’s gonna put it on you, but I’m glad I got second place.”
But second place turned to first for the Zephyrs.
“That was a surprise,” said Whitehall coach Dave Seeloff. “Quinn really got us going off the backstroke, so that was good to see, and Glenn’s breaststroke is coming along. Johnny’s butterfly was looking pretty strong, and anchoring with Cameron, he’s just a flip turn away from doing a really excellent 50.”
In individual events, Herring took third place in the 50 freestyle and second place in the 100 free with a personal best time of 56.88.
“You really don’t know what place you’re in when you’re in the water,” he said. “Depending on how you breathe, you can kind of get an estimate, but for all you know, there could be someone in the farthest lane to your left or your right, and they could be neck-and-neck, so you always have to push yourself.”
Kline came in third in the 200 IM in 2:30.61 and the 100 breaststroke in 1:17.54, and Stinner was third in the 100 butterfly in 1:08.18.
Doyle took second place in the 100 backstroke with a time of 1:04.90.
“I knew it was gonna be close, so I wanted to get as much of a lead as I could in case I fell back in the second half, so I gave it as much as I could,” he said. “We lost a lot of people (to graduation), so we’re struggling to get back to where we were, but everyone’s trying.”
Kline, Nathan Dease, Anthony Bloom, and Griffin Werner combined for third place in the 200 free relay with a time of 2:00.14, and Stinner, Herring, Justin George, and Doyle placed third in the 400 free relay in 4:01.89.
In team scores, Solehi prevailed over Whitehall, 121-48.