Palmerton's Solt leads contingent going to Bucknell

Palmerton senior Shea Solt will lead a contingent of TIMES NEWS area swimmers into this week's Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association Swimming and Diving Championships.

Four individuals and two relay teams will travel to Bucknell University to take part in the Class AA events, which run Friday and Saturday at Kinney Natatorium.

Solt was the lone area swimmer who captured an automatic bid to participate. She did that by picking up first place finishes as last week's District 11 meet.

The Bomber senior earned gold at the District 11 Swimming and Diving Championships in the 200 and 500 freestyle events. She is seeded fifth in both events with qualifying times of 1:53.88 (200 free) and 5:01.92 (500 free). Solt's 500 freestyle time was a new district record.

Katie Pielmeier and KP Pielmeier, both from Palmerton, along with Panther Valley's Karoline Vavra, received invitations thanks to recording state qualifying times at the District 11 meet.

Both the Panther Valley's girls' 200 yard medley relay and 200 freestyle relay teams also qualified based on times.

Katie Pielmeier will compete in both the 200 individual medley and 100 breaststroke, while Vavra, will join Pielmeier in the 100 breaststroke.

Pielmeier's time of 1:10.51 was good enough for district silver, while Vavra was a mere 35-hundredths of a second behind her to collect a bronze medal.

Pielmeier is seeded 24th in the state meet, while Vavra is seeded 27th.

Pielmeier is seeded 20th for the 200 individual medley.

KP Pielmeier is the lone TIMES NEWS area swimmer who will take part in the boys' meet. He will swim in the 200 individual medley thanks to his qualifying time of 2:04.18, which is good enough for a 27th seeding.

Meanwhile, the Panther Valley girls' relay teams are seeded 19th (200 medley) and 20th (200 freestyle). Tricia Janowiak, Lauren Cormier, Alexia Follweiler and Vavra are the Panther swimmers who comprise the two relay teams.

In addition, several individuals are currently listed as alternates who could make it into the action as well.

They are Palmerton's Sawyer Allen (second alternate in 100 breaststroke), and Panther Valley's Vavra (first alternate in the 50 freestyle), Janowiak (third alternate in 100 backstroke) and Cormier (second alternate in 100 breaststroke).