LEWISBURG Northwestern's Trey Shackleton opened the 2015 PIAA Swimming and Diving Class AA Championships with a pleasant showing.

The senior then ended the meet and his high school swimming career with an even bigger bang.Shackleton, after capturing a fourth-place finish in the 200-yard freestyle on Wednesday, one-upped himself roughly 24 hours later. He finished second in the 500-yard freestyle in a time of 4:33.06 on Thursday evening at Bucknell University's Kinney Natatorium."I'm really glad that I could improve on my place from last year," said Shackleton, who finished third in last season's 500-yard freestyle at states. "Last year I was in position for silver, and then at the end of the race I lost it to someone and ended up with bronze."Shackleton was one of five Times News area swimmers to compete at states over the two-day Class AA event. Marian Catholic's sophomore Katie Kurzinsky, the only other area swimmer to advance to the finals round, placed 12th in the 100-yard backstroke.Of the five swimmers, Shackleton was the only senior. He couldn't have imagined a better way to end a stellar high school career that has seen him win a total of six state medals over three years."Years ago when I first started swimming, I never thought I would be at this level," said Shackleton, who will swim at Indiana University next year. "To have improved this much, it feels really great. Going out of my high school career on the top of my game, it feels really awesome."Through 100 yards, Shackleton trailed West Allegheny's Jarod Kehl, but remained within striking distance. Kehl, however, grew his lead to 1.2 seconds heading into the last 50 yards, which was enough to outlast the Northwestern senior. Kehl took first in a time of 4:31.21. Shackleton had the fastest time in the preliminary round of the 500 free."My goal was to go 4:29 and get under 4:30 for the first time," Shackleton said. "Sometimes that just doesn't work out. It was still a good race for me."After placing 11th in the preliminary round, Kurzinsky's main focus heading into the consolation final of the 100-yard backstroke was to break the one-minute mark. She did that, finishing in fourth place of the B final in 59.93 seconds to earn a 12th-place finish."To go from last year and not even qualifying for states, to this year making it to the consolation finals and coming in 12th has been an amazing journey and experience," Kurzinsky said. "I've really progressed through the past year. It's exciting to see how much I improved in the past year, and how much I can improve in the future."I went a little over a minute at prelims, so my goal for finals was to go under a minute. I'm [one tenth of a second] off of YMCA Nationals, so that's currently my goal."The Marian sophomore will compete in the 15 and older division at the YMCA state meet next week at Penn State University's McCoy Natatorium.Kurzinsky's journey to the PIAA stage is a bit different than Shackleton's.While Shackleton has been a regular to the state stage in previous seasons, Kurzinsky experienced her first trip to that plateau on Thursday. In that inaugural trip, her focus was to make the finals cut."I was pretty nervous this morning," Kurzinsky said. "I was a little intimidated and a little scared because it's my first time here, but today I came into the consolation finals pretty excited. I was feeling pretty confident."Honestly, I just wanted to make finals. Placing 12th is good enough for me. I'm excited since it's my first time here. It's an honor to compete with these girls, and to be able to display our talents."Tamaqua sophomore Rebecca Kanaskie just missed out on the finals cut in both of her events, finishing 19th in both the 200-yard IM and 100-yard breaststroke prelims. Northern Lehigh junior Jose Avila came in 22nd in the preliminary round of the 500-yard freestyle, while Marian Catholic sophomore Timmy Dando finished in 30th of the same event.Villa Maria Academy ran away with the girls' team title with 267 points. Gwynedd Mercy Academy (155) and York Suburban (131) finished second and third, respectively.The boys meet was won by District 7's Quaker Valley with 174 points. Bloomsburg was second with 140 and Trinity took third with 122.