BY KEVIN WOODRUFF

Wyoming County Press Examiner

The District II Class AA swimming districts will take place on Friday at the Wilkes-Barre CYC with Tunkhannock Area and Elk Lake hoping to come home with some hardware.

Tunkhannock Area’s boys’ team will be competing in Class AA for the first time in several years this week, and coach Tim Mislevy hopes to come out with gold medal finishes.

“Looking over the seedings, there are going to be a lot of close races,” Mislevy said. “The boys have trained hard all year and we are looking for each one to have a new personal best time.”

Top seed individually for the Tiger boys is Ben Spencer, a three-time district champion, who has qualified for the PIAA meet in the past two seasons. He is top seed in the 200 IM and 100 backstroke.

Also at the top of the pack for the Tigers is the 200 medley relay team of Matt Miller, Ben Spencer, James Proulx and Joe Moffitt, which took gold at the Lackawanna County championships. Also seeded first is the 200 free relay team while the 400 free relay team is seeded second.

“I really look forward to watching each one of our swimmers in their events,” Mislevy said. “everyone will be pushed to swim their best times. It’s going to be an exciting meet.”

On the girls’ side, coach Larissa Cleary will look for individuals on the team to put in a strong performance this year, while also relying on relay teams to put up points for the Tigers.

“I’m excited to see the girls finish higher than last year overall,” Cleary said. “We have more girls swimming and participating individually than last year so we have a great chance to earn more points.”

The Tiger 200 medley relay team of Cheyanne Kasmierski, Morgan Manglaviti, Ashley Kasmierski and Kandis Venn is seeded second behind Abington Heights.

The Tiger 200 free relay is seeded fourth and the 400 free relay is seeded sixth.

Individually, Morgan Manglaviti is seeded second in the 100 freestyle and fourth in the 50 freestyle, while Ashley Kasmierski is seeded third in the 100 breaststroke and Kandis Venn is seeded fourth in the 100 backstroke and fifth in the 100 butterfly.

As for Elk Lake, the warrior boys will seek a strong finish from its 200 free relay team consisting of Seth Carney, Alex Manzek, Brad Grosvenor and Codie Malloy, which took third at the Lackawanna County meet.

Individually, the Warriors will look for strong finishes from Manzek, Malloy and Grosvenor.

On the girls’ side, the Warrior 400 free relay team of Audra Everitt, Olivia Everitt, Lainey Bedell and Sunny Griffiths enters the fray after a strong finish at the county meet.

The action gets started at 12 p.m. on Friday at the Wilkes-Barre CYC, with the meet continuing on Saturday, starting at 12 p.m.