Jon Gerardi on swimming: Swimmers like Shannon don’t come around often
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I've been involved in sports journalism since I started here at the Sun-Gazette as a part-time sports writer in 2007 while I was in college. I've been blessed being in this area to see a lot of outstanding talented athletes in numerous different sports, swimming among them.
So take it from me, be glad you got to watch a swimmer as talented as Lewisburg senior Kimmy Shannon these past four years. Swimmers that good don't come along that often.
Shannon won two gold medals this past weekend at the PIAA Class AA swimming championships at Bucknell's natatorium, taking gold in both the 200 IM and 500 free races. Those two gold medals gave Shannon eight state medals for her career: six golds and two silvers.
So how dominant was Shannon in her high school career? Lets put it this way, here's the full list of all-time area swimmers to secure six gold medals at the state meet:
Shannon.
That's it. That's the list.
Shannon did what no other area swimmer from our area has ever done by winning six career gold medals at the state meet.
Shannon won the 500 free by seven seconds with a time of 4:47.58 on Saturday, her final-winning time just .10 seconds off her prelim winning time earlier in the morning.
Shannon has eight career gold medals in District 4 competition as well and routinely dominated her races in district competition. Two years ago, Shannon cruised in her race that she spent roughly 20 seconds simply looking around and staring at the scoreboard to see her time as other swimmers finally touched the wall.
Among swimmers who medaled in District 4 history at the state meet in just individual events, Shannon is on a very short list of talented swimmers.
It was mentioned in Monday's edition of the Sun-Gazette, but Shannon is one of just eight swimmers to claim eight or more medals at the state meet. That's a list that includes Central Columbias' Katie Saloky (13 medals), Bloomsburg's Zach Stephens, 12), Central Columbia's Beth Grazio (nine), Shamokin's Abigail Doss (eight), Mifflinburg's Adriana Grabski (eight), Bloomsburg's Stef Williams (eight) and Central Columbia's Courtney Stanchock (eight).
And of that list, just Shannon, Doss, Grabski, Williams, and Stanchock earned all eight medals in individual events.
Only four swimmers in the history of District 4 — which dates back to the 1970s in PIAA competition — has secured six or more career gold medals at states.
Williams won eight and both Doss and Grabski had six, as does Shannon.
I was lucky enough to see Grabski compete at Mifflinburg when I had a brief stint in Sunbury for two years. Grabski was an outstanding swimmer who, much like Shannon, absolutely dominated her races and made winning look easy. That's exactly how Shannon swam these past four years. And, like Grabski, Shannon will be swimming for a Division I program. Grabski was a former Virginia Tech standout and Shannon will look to keep making waves, no pun intended, with the University of Pittsburgh next year.
She's one of just six athletes from District 4 to ever win gold in three consecutive years, joining those listed above in addition to Danville's Jessie Perruquet (1997-00).
Lewisburg is a school which has one of the district's best swimming programs historically. Like it's boys soccer program and track and field program, the Green Dragons' swim program produces district champion-quality swimmers as fast as Hershey cranks out chocolate bars.
Think about some of those outstanding swimmers of yesteryear such as Christian Coleman and the outstanding T.J. and Andy Storm. As good as they were, they never were able to medal all four years at the state meet. The only Lewisburg swimmer to ever do so outside of Shannon was Caitlin Foley, who took third twice, fourth once and fifth once in the 100 back from 2012-15.
No other swimmer in our area — boys or girls — ever reached the podium all four years of varsity competition.
Winning a state medal in swimming is far from easy to do, regardless of event or classification. Standing on the top of the podium once is hard enough. Doing it six times with a gold medal around your neck? That's pretty damn remarkable.
If you got to watch Shannon swim in person over the last four years, consider yourself lucky. Swimmers like that don't come around too often.
Jon Gerardi is the sports editor at the Sun-Gazette. Email comments to jgerardi@sungazette.com. Follow him on Twitter at @JonGerardi.