Mount Pleasant’s Lily King accomplished almost everything a high school swimmer can accomplish last season.
Not only did King win two individual events in the WPIAL and PIAA Class 2A championships, she set WPIAL records in both the 100- and 200-yard freestyles to go along with her 2022 record in the 50 freestyle, set the state record in the 100 freestyle and was named PIAA Swimmer of the Meet while helping the Vikings to their first state team title.
Oh, and she earned a spot in the 2024 Olympic Trials in the 50-meter freestyle along the way.
Unlike several past swimmers in her position, though, King won’t take her junior year off to train specifically for the Olympics.
“I will be swimming with Mount Pleasant,” King said. “I will do all my training with [Mount Pleasant coach] Sandy [Felice]. I trust her, so I’m always going to train with her.”
Not always, but at least for the next two years. King, the No. 1 junior swimmer in the state and ranked No. 12 in the country, has committed to swim collegiately at North Carolina State.
“The amazing coaching staff really stuck out for me, and I feel like I connected with all of them and with the girls on the team,” King said of N.C. State. “It’s going to be a good match between me and the coach, Braden Holloway, and when I get there, I think he’s really going to be able to take me to the next level where I want to be in college swimming.”
Before she heads south to Raleigh, King still has a few things she can add to her high school resume and could, arguably, end up as the best swimmer in WPIAL history.
In two years, King has won four WPIAL and four PIAA titles. She won the 50 and 100 freestyles as a freshman and the 100 and 200 freestyles as a sophomore when she dropped the 50 freestyle to help the team win both the WPIAL and PIAA team titles.
Only two swimmers, Melanie Buddemeyer of Penn Hills (1981-84) and Olivia Livingston of Gateway (2017-20), have ever won eight WPIAL individual titles, and both did it in Class 3A. King can become the first to do it in Class 2A and become the only swimmer in WPIAL history in either classification to win eight individual state titles.
Like last year, she does not know what events she will be swimming in when the WPIAL finals roll around on Feb. 29, but potentially joining that elite group will be especially motivating.
“That would be an honor and a huge accomplishment for me,” King said. “I think that it would be a great testament to my personal goals and to Sandy, who has been able to get me to that point if I were to be able to get there.”
It’s not like it will be a cakewalk. If she stays in the 100 and 200 freestyles, her toughest competition will be a former state champion in Elise Nardozzi of Northgate, the No. 2 senior in the state and an Ohio State recruit who won the 200 freestyle in 2022. Nardozzi was the WPIAL and PIAA runner-up to King in the 2022 100 freestyles and in both the 100 and 200 freestyles last season.
King is one of only two returning state champions from the WPIAL. The other is Indiana junior Peyton Scott, who took home the title in the 100 breaststroke.
Here is a look at some other swimmers to watch in other WPIAL classifications.
Class 2A boys
While King is on track to become the first female swimmer to win eight individual state titles, Indiana junior Preston Kessler is matching her stride for stride.
Kessler won both the WPIAL and PIAA 100 and 200 freestyles in 2022 and 2023 and could become the first male swimmer this century to win eight WPIAL and PIAA individual championships.
In fact, no boys swimmer in either classification has ever swept individual honors at the WPIAL level and just five - Hampton alum Matt Harrigan (1994-97), Shady Side Academy’s Brett Murphy (2001-04), Upper St. Clair’s Kyle Dudzinski (2008-11) and Josh Matheny (2018-21) and Neshannock’s Conner McBeth (2018-21) - ever won even one event four times.
Harrigan is believed to be the only eight-time WPIAL individual champion. In addition to his four titles in the 200 individual medley, he won three times in the 500 freestyle and once in the 100 breaststroke.
As Kessler tries for his fifth and sixth state titles, Riverside senior Joseph Roth will look to cap his high school career with a three-peat. Roth, who also plays basketball at Ellwood City, is a two-time state champion and state record-holder in the 100 backstroke and will be seeking his third win in the event this year.
Mount Pleasant junior Joseph Gardner won his first state title last year in the 100 breaststroke as he set a state record with a mark of 55.23 seconds. He is the only other returning state champion from the WPIAL.
Class 3A girls
For 15 consecutive years North Allegheny has stood atop the podium, then taken a plunge in the pool as the WPIAL Class 3A girls champion. The Tigers have the longest title streak of any girls program in WPIAL history, but they are only three-quarters of the way to tying the all-time all-sports record of 20 by the Bethel Park boys swimming team from 1981-2000.
Even so, North Allegheny will have a nice crop of swimmers ready to take up the mantle despite not having any state champions returning.
Senior Natalie Sens may finally have an opportunity to win the 200 individual medley after Fox Chapel’s Sophie Shao graduated, but she will have a challenge in the 100 breaststroke. Returning champion, Pine-Richland junior and Kentucky recruit Sarah Shaffer, is back to defend.
North Allegheny has benefitted the last four years by having dominant divers. The Tigers will take a bit of a hit after four-time champion Christina Shi left for Harvard, but the team has the top two returning finishers from last year’s WPIAL finals in juniors Lola Malarky and Juliet Hood.
While North Allegheny may be the team to beat, an individual to watch is Mt. Lebanon junior Sylvia Roy, reigning state champion in the 100 backstroke, who is halfway to joining the eight-title club.
A Virginia recruit, Roy has won the past two WPIAL Class 3A championships in the 50 freestyle and 100 backstroke.
Class 3A boys
On the boys side, North Allegheny ended a three-year drought by winning the team title last year. It was the longest they went without a title since a four-season dry spell between 2002 and 2005.
This year, the Tigers have a solid foundation with senior William Gao, the reigning WPIAL champion in both the 100 butterfly and 100 backstroke.
Gao is one of only three WPIAL titlists back to defend this season. Fox Chapel junior Christian Dantey (200 freestyle), Penn-Trafford senior Patton Graziano (100 freestyle) and Central Catholic junior McClellan Clark (500 freestyle) are the others.
No WPIAL Class 3A boy won a state title last season.
Keith Barnes: kbarnes.pg@gmail.com and Twitter @kbarnes_pghsprt
First Published: December 18, 2023, 5:35 p.m.
