Future Gateway swimmer Hunter Raymer shines at Keystone Classic meets
Hunter Raymer will be a freshman on the Gateway varsity boys swim team for the 2021-22 season, and in building toward that time, he has been making the most of his recent in-pool opportunities.
Representing the Fox Chapel Killer Whales club team, the eighth grader posted several personal-best times and Speedo Sectional qualifying times at the Junior Keystone Classic on March 12-14 and the Senior Keystone Classic on March 26-28.
At the Junior Keystone Classic in Carlisle, he swam a personal-best of 4 minutes, 14.95 seconds to win the 400-yard individual medley. He dropped nearly 20 seconds from his previous best time and earned a Speedo Sectional cut.
He added a third-place finish in the 200 IM (2:01.40) which gave him another Speedo Sectional cut and helped put him near the top of the leaderboard for total points at the event.
Other top finishes for Raymer at the Junior Keystone Classic included fourths in both the 200 backstroke (1:59.52) and the 200 free (1:48.04). His time in the 200 back missed a sectional cut by seven-tenths of a second, and he was also less than a second off of a sectional cut in the 100 back (56.74).
Raymer also posted a personal best in the 100 free (50.17, eighth place).
At the Senior Keystone Classic in Carlisle, where he raced against competitors two or three years older, he posted Speedo Sectional cuts in the 500 free (4:48.73) and 1,000 free (9:45.96).
He swam the championship finals in the 1,000 free and placed seventh overall.
The Speedo Sectionals meet will be in July at the Spire Institute in Geneva, Ohio. He also hopes to qualify for Speedo Futures, also set for July, in Richmond, Va.
He is close to qualifying marks in both the 1,000 free and 400 IM. Upcoming opportunities, both locally and outside the Pittsburgh area, could lift him to the marks he needs for Futures qualification.
With high school swimming on the horizon, Raymer’s Junior Keystone time in the 200 IM (1:59.52) and Senior Keystone time in the 500 free (4:48.73) would have been automatic cuts for March’s WPIAL Class AAA championships at Upper St. Clair High School.
His 200 free time (1:48.04) was a secondary cut that would have earned him a spot in the top 16 entries for WPIALs.
Michael Love is a TribLive reporter covering sports in the Alle-Kiski Valley and the eastern suburbs of Pittsburgh. A Clearfield native and a graduate of Westminster (Pa.), he joined the Trib in 2002 after spending five years at the Clearfield Progress. He can be reached at mlove@triblive.com.
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