CHRISTIAN VALUE: Princeton High boys’ swimmer Christian Chiang powers to a second place finish in the 100-meter butterfly final last Saturday in the Mercer County Swimming Championships at WW/P-N. Chiang also took second in the 100 breaststroke to help PHS place third in the team standings. (Photo by Frank Wojciechowski)

Christian Chiang didn’t stand still in the blocks as he got ready to compete in the 100-meter butterfly final in the Mercer County Swimming Championships at WW/P-N last Saturday, jumping up and down and pumping his arms with a grin on his face.

“I do anything to get my mind into the race,” said Princeton High senior boys’ swimming star Chiang, explaining his animated pre-race routine.

“You usually want to race your own race. You don’t want to think about anything else, just to focus on yourself, and the best way for me to do it is to get pumped up like that.”

Chiang produced some inspired racing in his final county meet, taking second in both the 100 butterfly and 100 breaststroke to help PHS place third in the team standings, trailing only champion Notre Dame and runner-up WW/P-S.

A smiling Chiang was thrilled with the team’s third place showing, pointing to a strong effort in the preliminaries on Friday as a morale booster.

“It was somewhat hard to think — going into counties — how well we were going to do because we had a few more losses than last year,” said Chiang

“Everyone stepped up yesterday, we brought confidence from yesterday and we all performed very well today, if not better.”

Chiang was excited by his performance in the fly, as he clocked a time of 1:01.01, trailing winning Kurt Von Autenreid of WW/P-S by just over two seconds.

“I am really proud of myself because I usually swim breaststroke,” said Chiang, who is heading to Middlebury College next year and will be joining its swimming program.

“I will be swimming breaststroke next year. I will be talking to my coach about possibly swimming fly. I never thought about fly as a thing I would be doing. Luckily I was able to step up from junior year with the loss of seniors.”

In the breaststroke, Chiang suffered a narrow loss to Deion Alfajora of WW/P-N, coming in at 1:10.12, less than seconds behind Alfajora.

“Deion is a great competitor, I know him from club meets and he is a great kid,” said Chiang, who also competes for the X-Cel club program.

“We do around the same times. Also there were the juniors on South (WW/P-S), they are absolutely phenomenal swimmers. I am glad I got the chance to swim against them today.”

PHS will be looking to build on its great effort in the county meet when it starts action this week in the state tourney in the North 2 Group B sectional, where it is seeded sixth and will face No. 7 Summit in the first round.

“It is a tough matchup but third place is going to motivate the guys a lot,” said Chiang. “They are going to see how well we did, there is going to be more confidence than we have had in past tournaments.”

Chiang looks to provide motivation for PHS as one of the team’s co-captains along with classmates Stephen Kratzer, Jackson Miller, and David  Cohen.

“It has just gone along with aging up, like a lot of people on the team, we have been raised with a group of seniors that has always been able to step up,” said Chiang.

“They have been such good role models. Come junior, senior year, it is really integral for you to realize that, oh this is the time that I need to fill this spot for them and show the underclassmen what to do.”

PHS head coach Carly Misiewicz was proud of the way her boys’ team stepped up to the third place finish in the county finals.

“I did not foresee that happening at all before the meet,” said Misiewicz.

“After they swam out of their minds yesterday, I was so pleased. They swam really well across the board. We were saying we are a contender for third. We made the boys well aware of that from the beginning because I think that fires them up a little more.”

Misiewicz was fired up by Chiang’s swimming. “I thought Christian had a phenomenal day,” said Misiewicz, noting that Chiang helped the PHS 200 free relay take second and the 200 medley relay place fifth. “He is a great kid and he really gets pumped up. He is dancing in the blocks.”

PHS got some great efforts from Kratzer, who took second in the 200 free and third in the 100 free, and junior Alex Petruso, the third place finisher in the 100 backstroke and fourth in the 50 free.

“Kratzer had a huge day, with that second and third,” added Misiewicz. “Petruso had great swims.”

For Chiang, helping PHS take third in his final county meet was a great experience.

“I loved every part of this meet, I loved coming into it for all of these four years,” said Chiang.

“I love the team as a unit. I didn’t think we would do as well this year but they proved me wrong.”