PIAA Boys’ Swimming: STATE CHAMP! Blue Mountain’s Powers blazes to victory in 50 freestyle
Blue Mountain's Noah Powers is crowned state champion after winning the boys' 50-yard freestyle Wednesday at the PIAA Swimming Championships at Bucknell University (Photo by Leroy Boyer).
LEWISBURG — Nobody has gone faster.
Blue Mountain senior Noah Powers added another layer to his historic high school swimming career Wednesday night, winning gold in the Class AA boys’ 50-yard freestyle at the PIAA Swimming Championships at Bucknell University’s Kinney Natatorium.
His winning time of 19.83 seconds technically isn’t a state record.
Powers already owns that, going 19.82 as the lead-off leg in the 200 freestyle relay last year at Bucknell.
It does, however, mark the first time a Class AA boys’ swimmer has posted a time under 20 seconds in the 50-yard freestyle event, a time that sent the Kinney Natatorium crowd — the spectators in the bleachers and the swimmers and coaches on the deck — into a frenzy.
“It’s an amazing accomplishment,” Powers said. “At the state level, it’s a great thing to do. It’s an awesome feeling.”
A University of Virginia commit, Powers came into the two-day Class AA state meet poised to do great things and he lived up to them during Wednesday’s Day 1.
In the 50 freestyle, Powers entered as the No. 1 seed and maintained that through the morning preliminaries, clocking a time of 20.44 seconds that seemed effortless.
He went even faster in the evening finals, winning easily over second-place Joshua Reed of Indiana, who finished in 21.28.
“It’s a really hard event. One small mixup is a big-time loss so it’s a real hard race to get perfect,” Powers said of the 50 free. “I’m happy I chose that race. It’s the most fun race and it gets me the most excited.”
Powers also excelled Wednesday in two relays, helping Blue Mountain finish ninth in the 200 medley relay and fourth in the 200 freestyle relay.
In the medley, Powers’ breaststroke split of 26.31 in the preliminaries — the second fastest of the 24 teams in the morning — helped the Blue Mountain quartet of Brody Moyer, Powers, Porter Sarnes and Aidan Varney drop 0.46 seconds from their District 11 runner-up time to place ninth in 1:40.31 and earn a spot in the evening consolation finals.
In the evening, Blue Mountain maintained that ninth-place finish, dropping 1.17 more seconds and breaking the Eagles’ school record with a time of 1:39.14. The old mark was 1:39.44 set in 2016 by Mark Boran, Zack Yackenchick, Stephen Johnson and Christian Wilson.
Powers went even faster in his breaststroke split, going 25.85. Only 200 IM champion Joseph Gardner of gold-medal-winning Mt. Pleasant went faster in the breaststroke portion of the medley relay with a time of 24.86.
In the 200 freestyle relay, Powers was clocked in 19.73 in the preliminaries as the team of Moyer, Gabe Kamarousky, Varney and Powers placed fourth in 1:29.30.
The Eagles then garnered fourth-place medals in the championship finals in 1:28.50. Roughly 20 minutes after winning gold in the 50 freestyle in 19.83, Powers went 19.55 as the anchor of the relay, helping the Eagles rise from seventh when he entered the water to fourth.
Indiana won the race in 1:25.96, followed by Tunkhannock (1:28.05) and Mt. Pleasant (1:28.24).
“I feel like I could have went faster. I feel like it wasn’t the best race of my life,” Powers said of his 19.55 time.
“I love anchoring the relays,” Powers continued. “It’s one of my favorite things to do. If we’re behind, it’s a great thing for me to catch up or just have a great race with my friends.”
