Belle Vernon swimmer wins WPIAL championship
PITTSBURGH – Only one thing preyed on the mind of Robert Spekis as the Belle Vernon junior stepped onto the starting block to compete in the 200-yard individual medley, a race in which he was the favorite during the WPIAL Class AA swimming championships.
“Get through the backstroke,” he said. “It’s not my best stroke.”
The breaststroke is. And, Spekis catapulted to victory in 1:58.48 by taking advantage of his adeptness in the third leg of the race.
“I’m a little faster in the breast,” Spekis said. “If I could power through (the back), then (the breast) wasn’t that far behind and I could pull it out.”
Spekis has a way of pulling out the stops. He did not earn his top seed in the race until swimming his best time in the last meet of the season.
Nevertheless, coming into the meet as the favorite does have it drawbacks.
“It’s surreal,” he said of the triumph. “Just being able to live up to the seed, having the target on my back and the expectation of getting (the win) is a great thing.”
Remarkable has been Spekis’ rise in the race, which features all four strokes with the leadoff being the butterfly and the finish being a 50-yard sprint to the wall. He finished seventh in the event at last year’s WPIAL championships.
“It helped that there was a big senior class last year,” said the humble Spekis. “But it was something that I had on my mind the whole season. I wanted to be first on that podium so I kept reminding myself of that all season and pushed through it.”
Spekis is able to push through because he is motivated by the swimmers in his home school’s pool, particularly freshman Ian Shahan, who was favored in the butterfly but lost his bid for the gold when Riverside’s Dean Kralic tied the WPIAL record with a 50.29 swim. Shahan took second with a 51.65 mark.
Because Spekis and Shahan are lane partners, they work out together.
“We feed off each other. He works me on the backstroke and sprinting and I make him better in his events,” Spekis said.
Together, Spekis and Shahan helped Belle Vernon set the tone for the meet. The Leopards took third in the medley relay, which also consisted of Tucker West and Alex Miller. BV clocked a 1:38.55 time.
Northgate won the race in 1:37.77 for a WPIAL record, bettering the mark of 1:37.98 set by Indiana in 2011. Riverside finished second in 1:38.55.
Of the bronze-medal effort Spekis said that is was perhaps even more special than his individual triumph.
“Team success is so much more fun because you get to do it with three other guys,” he said. “Just to celebrate something like that with them is equally, if not, more special.”
Belle Vernon’s first day successes, which included 13th by West in the 200 free, translated into a ninth-place position in the team standings with 73 points. Northgate is in first place with a 133 score followed by Elizabeth-Forward (100.5).
South Fayette is in 17th place and Trinity in 27th after the first day of competition.
Top finishes for the Lions included:
- Ninth-200 free relay: Dante Cecere, Josh Francis, Carson Tucker, Michael Grimenstein.
- 16th-200 medley realy: Ryan Miller, Garrett Fincke, Kyle Lynch and Tucker.
Individually: Cercere tied for seventh in the 50 free; Fincke and Lynch were 17th and 18th in the 200 free; Grimenstein, 12th in the 50 free.
Top finishers for the Hillers were:
- 13th in the 200 free relay with Matt Day, Garrett Orr, Robert Quinn and Patrick Bryant.
Bryant was 11th in the 200 free.
In girls competition, Ringgold is in 12th place.
Top performances included:
- 11th in 200-yard medley. Kaylee Kassa, Rebecca Noll, Autumn Lusk and Andrea Kassa.
- 14th in 200 free, Andrea Kassa
- 14th in the fly and 10th in IM, Kaylee Kassa
- 11th in the IM, Rebecca Noll.