JB's Kimmel, Chambersburg's Greenwood win gold
For the second day in a row, James Buchanan girls and Chambersburg boys brought home a gold medal from the District 3 Swimming Championships on Saturday.
Chambersburg's Jacob Greenwood was a double winner after earning a gold Friday in the 200 freestyle, then living up to his No. 1 seed on Saturday as the 500 freestyle victor.
“I know from Mid Penns I had high expectations and the pressure got to me. I didn’t live up to what I wanted,” Greenwood said. “It feels really great from where I started with a concussion, coming back and winning District 3 as a sophomore is ecstatic for me.”
For the Rockets, Rachel Kimmel also was a dominant performer in the 100 breaststroke, clocking in at 1:04.75, nearly three seconds faster than the competition.
"It was really encouraging to see her swim that level and improve her time without direct competition," JB coach Lori McCullough said. "The first time she swam a 1:04, she was with someone that was really pushing her. Today, she went in dominant and didn't have a lot of pressure on either side of her."
Kimmel was helped along by an extremely fast opening split of 30.2 seconds. A year ago, Kimmel placed seventh in the same event at the district level with a time of 1:11.
"Last year I thought first place was almost impossible," Kimmel said. "I feel on top of the world right now. I can't believe I dropped that much time but I've worked really hard for it."
JB's success didn't end there. Teammate Annabelle McCullough added a second-place finish in the 100 freestyle (53.20) and helped the Rockets to fifth place in the Class 2A girls team standings.
"We had five girls there, and we were able to pull off a finish like that and come in ahead of a lot of these schools that had double the amount of swimmers we did," coach McCullough said. "It really speaks that the handful of swimmers we have are very high quality and they work really hard. It was fun bringing that news back."
The Trojans had a lot of good news to bring back as well. In addition to Greenwood's time of 4:33.87 in his first-place 500 free, teammate Avery Barley also collected silver in the 100 backstroke, finishing in 51.80.
Shippensburg's top finisher was Sam Nonemaker for the boys; he placed fourth in the 500 freestyle (5:03.63), and on the girls side, Madison Osanitsch and Makenna Morris were fourth and fifth, respectively, in the 500 free and were separated by less than a half-second. Osanitsch touched the wall in 5:19.21, and Morris followed right behind in 5:19.45.
JB's Nick Garbinski also had a personal best in 100 freestyle (48.2), which was good enough for seventh.
Editors note: Freelance reporter Steve Navaroli contributed to this story.