Many high school swimmers use their first appearance at states as a learning experience. Happy just to be there, a lot of young swimmers get acclimated to the environment their first time, realizing how difficult it is for a rookie to perform on that stage.

Trey Shackleton took a different mindset. Although the sophomore from the Northwestern School District was making his first trip to the PIAA Swimming and Diving Championships, he still planned to perform his best and compete for medals.

He did just that, taking third place in the Class AA 500-yard freestyle and seventh in the 200 freestyle.

"Considering what this is, I wasn't as nervous as I possibly could have been," he said. "It was a great experience to have swum once. I think next year and the year after I can really just train hard and come back and swim even better in both events."

Schackleton entered last Thursday's 500 freestyle as the No. 3 seed after swimming a 4:41.90 at districts. He posted the eighth-best time in preliminaries (4:45.58), which meant he earned the last qualifying spot in the championship final.

Swimming in lane eight, Shackleton cruised to a personal best time of 4:37.77.

"I think I performed great," he said. "At the end of the race I was exhausted. I don't think I had anything left to leave in the water. That's as well I could have done and I'm really happy with my performance."

Shackleton decided not to set an exact goal time or place and it worked. He prefers to keep the pressure to a minimum and let the race come to him.

"I just thought I'd let the race develop and see how high I can place and how fast I can go," he said. "I prefer to be on the outside lanes. When I'm anywhere close to the center I feel I have more pressure on me. When I'm in lane eight I have nowhere to go but up and I can be more relaxed in the water."

Shackleton, who attends PA Cyber School, swims for Northwestern. But the Tigers don't have a pool or a swim team, so Shackleton is one of a handful of swimmers who compete at states without being part of a school team.

Shackleton earned his seventh-place in 200 freestyle on the first day of states, last Wednesday.

"It didn't go as well as I thought it could have," he said. "I thought I could have placed higher and had a faster time. But I am satisfied considering this is my first state meet. I still have years to improve."

Shackleton actually increased his time from the preliminaries to the finals, but unfortunately fell one spot. His prelim time of 1:44.79 seeded him sixth entering the finals. He bettered that time by three-tenths of a second (1:44.44), but dropped to seventh as Jarod Kehl of Montour jumped over him.

"You could tell people were going faster at night," said Shackleton. "You could definitely see people were ready to race and that they weren't just trying to earn a spot in the finals.

"It really hit me when I stepped up to the block. My heart was racing. Even when I jumped in the water my heart was pumping. I just couldn't keep up the pace with the other guys."

With two more years to improve on his stellar first-year performance, Shackleton looks forward to future state meets.

Another Northwestern School District resident competed in the Class AA state meet. Diver Nicole Sagl, an Allentown Central Catholic sophomore, placed sixth in girls diving.

The District 11 champ was seeded sixth and held that position by scoring 374.90. McKenzie Stelter of Mohawk won this year's Class AA diving title with a score of 406.7

It marks Sagl's second state medal as she earned fifth place last year.