LEWISBURG — Attend a high school swimming dual meet in January or February, and the swimmers on each team all wear the same swimsuit.
The suits are usually all the same brand, provided by the school and most likely all the same color, whether it’s the school colors, or just all black.
When you get to the postseason, however, it’s a much different story.
In an effort to slice through the water as fast as possible, nearly all state-level swimmers purchase technical racing or compression suits that are made of lightweight nylon/Lycra spandex material, tighter on the body and repel water.
These “tech” suits come in a variety of brands — Speedo, TYR, Arena and Nike, to name a few — and a menagerie of colors. Those colors were definitely on display Wednesday and Thursday at the PIAA Swimming Championships at Bucknell University’s Kinney Natatorium.
There were bright, fluorescent yellow suits, and similar body suits in fluorescent orange and red. There were suits that looked like the foam padding beneath your carpet — a mixture of green, lime green, red, yellow and black — and there were some you couldn’t miss if you tried, like Rebecca Kanaskie’s suit that was a splash painting of shapes in pink, aqua, black, blue and colored camouflage.
Tech suits aren’t cheap, costing anywhere from $250 to $500, depending on the manufacturer and style. The suits
aren’t provided by the school, meaning the swimmer or his/her parents are responsible for finding one that fits the swimmer perfectly and then funding that purchase.
For example, Schuylkill Haven’s Mary Zimmerman and Taylor Felty both wore blue-and-black-colored Arena Carbon Flex suits that sell for $475 online. Blue Mountain’s Mark Boran utilized a blue-and-black-colored Arena Carbon Flex Jammer that retails for $350.
There are countless stories of local swimmers who have purchased a tech suit prior to the District 11 or PIAA championships and saw a dramatic drop in time. The one that sticks out in my mind is Mahanoy Area’s Kelly Purcell, who purchased a tech suit before the 2009 PIAA Swimming Championships and placed eighth in the 200-yard freestyle.
But purchasing a tech suit doesn’t guarantee success. In fact, sometimes it can be a nightmare.
Just ask Kanaskie, Blue Mountain’s Nathanael Marino and Shamokin’s Samantha Carpenter.
Kanaskie and her parents purchased a TYR Avictor Prelude at the D&J Sports stand inside Bucknell’s Sojka Pavilion on Tuesday for a discounted price of just more than $350.
The suit looked awesome. For Kanaskie, who stands 5-foot-3 and weighs about 100 pounds, it was too tight.
“The more streamlined you can be, the better,” she explained. “It’s all about finding which suit works best for you.
“I can try on about seven suits, like I did yesterday, and only one of them will fit exactly right. They’ll be too small in the top, or too tight in the legs. Finding that right niche and that right suit can be so difficult.
“I wear a size 22, which is very hard to find. I’m really small in my ribcage, and then my legs are a little bit longer than my torso.”
Kanaskie’s suit was so tight, she ended up with cuts on her hands and bruised fingers trying to get it on and off.
After placing 19th in Wednesday’s 200 IM, she switched to a Speedo LZR Elite for Thursday’s 100 breaststroke.
Carpenter, who also competed in the breaststroke, wore an Arena Carbon Pro MK2. As she made her first flip turn, however, the suit filled up with water, hampering her efforts.
“It’s more like you’re wearing an entire compression suit over your body,” Kanaskie said. “(Wednesday’s) suit was tighter. (Thursday’s) suit gave me more movement in my legs for the breaststroke.”
Marino bought an Arena suit for the District 11 Swimming Championships and won four gold medals. Marino, however, bought the suit online through ebay from a company in the United Kingdom.
Arena’s suits for overseas contain a logo that’s bigger than the ones shipped to the U.S., and District 11 officials warned Marino he might get disqualified if he wore the suit to states.
Marino and his parents called the company, and it agreed to send him a different suit for states. It was supposed to arrive Tuesday, just before Blue Mountain’s team departed for Bucknell.
It didn’t get there in time.
“We called Arena to switch the shipping address to our hotel,” Marino said. “UPS, the shipping company, got all confused, and the suit got stuck in Saint Clair until things were figured out.”
Luckily, Marino had purchased another suit, a Speedo LZR Elite, through D&J that he wore Wednesday. His new suit, a black-and-red one, arrived just before prelims Thursday and Marino was able to wear it for the 100 breaststroke, in which he placed 12th.
District 11 medalists
Compared to years past, it was a rather lackluster state meet for swimmers from District 11.
Combined, District 11 garnered 11 medals, five by the boys and six by the girls.
Salisbury sophomore Mahlon Reihman won the boys’ 200 freestyle in 1:40.92 and was second in the 100 freestyle in 47.09; while Northwestern Lehigh’s Trey Shackleton was fourth in the 200 freestyle (1:42.86) and second in the 500 freestyle (4:33.06) and Bethlehem Catholic’s Jarod LaSelva was eighth in 100 fly (54.11).
On the girls’ side, Bethlehem Catholic’s Sydnee Karam was third in 200 freestyle (1:51.86) and fifth in 500 freestyle (5:04.48); Southern Lehigh’s Jenna Forrester took fourth in 50 freestyle (24.45) and sixth in 100 freestyle (52.82); Southern Lehigh’s Raechel Rodriguez was eighth in 100 breaststroke (1:08.59); and Allentown Central Catholic’s Nicole Sagl placed fourth in diving.
Twin Valley program
reaches new heights
When you cover a state meet, no matter what the sport, you always run into an old friend or two.
Such was the case at this year’s PIAA Swimming Championships.
Twin Valley head coach Brian Emerich is a 1977 Schuylkill Haven grad and, way back yonder, was one of my midget football coaches. His parents, Lawrence and Shirley, and his younger brother, Larry, still reside in Schuylkill Haven.
Emerich, 55, is in his fourth year coaching the Raiders, which just started fielding a team several years ago. This year, Emerich’s squad had its best season ever.
Twin Valley’s girls finished fifth at the District 3 Class AA Championships, qualifying four individuals and a relay team to states.
Emerich had been to states before, with Samantha Schlegel in the IM two years ago and Hannah Schlegel in the 500 freestyle last year — but both were in Class AAA.
With Twin Valley’s girls dropping to Class AA this season, the Raiders fared well at Bucknell, earning three medals.
The Raiders’ 200 medley relay team of freshman Taylor Ament, sophomore Hannah Schlegel, freshman Rachel Gebhard and senior Samantha Schlegel was fourth, while Hannah Schlegel was fourth in the 200 freestyle (1:53.34) and second in the 500 freestyle (4:54.29).
Samantha Schlegel was 13th in 200 IM (2:13.58), while Ament was 16th in the 100 backstroke (1:01.68) and Gebhard was 28th in the 50 freestyle. As a team, Twin Valley finished ninth overall with 67 points.
Not bad for a school that doesn’t have its own pool. The Raiders practice at a nearby retirement home, the St. Mary of Providence in Elverson, and swam all their dual meets on the road.
Twin Valley has competed against Schuylkill Haven the past couple of years. Emerich said his team plans to move into a new facility at the Tel-Hai retirement facility in nearby Honey Brook next season, and will be able to host dual meets.
In his 19th year as a fourth-grade teacher at Morgantown Elementary, Emerich said his Twin Valley swim team consists of only 10 girls and five boys, and fights the same numbers problem that plagues Schuylkill League schools.
That made the Raiders’ showing Wednesday and Thursday even that more impressive.
Star search
The end of the 2014-15 season brings an end to several sparkling Schuylkill League swim careers.
Blue Mountain loses Marino, two-time state qualifier Joey McLaughlin, two-time league diving champion Lyle Luckenbill and seven girls from its Schuylkill League championship squad. Pottsville graduates 11 members of its Schuylkill League boys’ title team, plus three-time league diving champion Gabrielle Hammer. Three-time state qualifier Allison Adams and relay teammate Elizabeth Bayliff of Schuylkill Haven, Tamaqua 1,000-point scorer Danielle DeCindio and Mahanoy Area’s Noel Bernardyn also graduate.
That leaves a big void for the league’s youth to fill. When next season begins, the league will be looking for some new stars.
If you’re athletic, and looking for a winter sport, swimming is worth a try. There are plenty of roster spots available.
(Boyer is sports editor. Follow him on Twitter @pubsportsboss)