The Daily Item
LEWISBURG — Danville senior Brenna Ross started her last PIAA Swimming Championships with her first state title.
The Delaware-bound senior won the 50 freestyle by less than a tenth of a second Wednesday afternoon at Bucknell’s Kinney Natatorium claiming her first career gold medal.
After finishing third in the 50 free and 100 breaststroke as a junior, Ross entered states as the 11th seed in the 50 free.
The field was void of last year’s champion — Mount Pleasant sophomore Lily King who broke the state record in last year’s final and won the 200 free on Wednesday.
After turning in the second-fastest time in the morning preliminaries to secure a bid in the finals, Ross dropped more than a quarter-second in the finals to win in 23.73 seconds, the exact same time — down to the hundredth of a second — Ross swam to claim bronze as a junior. Blue Mountain senior Hannah Madgeburg was second in 23.81 seconds, three-hundredths slower than her top-seeded prelim time.
Ross is Danville’s first state champion since Ryann Kishbaugh won the 100 back title in 2005.
Lewisburg state champion Kimmy Shannon was second in the 200 IM on Wednesday in a 1-2 repeat with Mapletown’s Ella Menear from 2022. Shannon is the top seed in the 500 free — an event she has won two state titles already — today. Ross will compete in 100 breaststroke today. She seeded third in an event that has six of the eight finalists from last year’s final returning.