Jesse Washington bounced back from a disappointing Commonwealth Games qualifying campaign with a strong performance at the Eastern Interscholastic Swimming & Diving Championships in Pennsylvania at the weekend.

Washington captured the gold medal in the 200 metres freestyle, touching the wall in 1min 39.12sec, to lead a group of Warwick Academy swimmers competing at the meet at the Kunkel Aquatic Centre at Franklin & Marshall College.

His triumph went some way towards compensating for his failed bid to qualify for the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast, Australia, in April.

The local contingent were unfortunate not to have earned another medal as Logan Watson-Brown narrowly missed out on the bronze after finishing fourth in the 200 freestyle in 1:53.17.

Taylor White, Gabriela Pitman, Skyler Powell, Sam Williamson, Brian Desmond and Keagan Woolley were the remaining members to represent Warwick.

Woolley went into the championships with momentum having broken Julian Fletcher’s national age-group record in the boys’ 15-16 50 breaststroke at the opening meet of the Best of Best Shipping Series at the BASA Pool last month.

He was also among a Sharks Swim Club foursome, which included multiple Carifta Championships medal-winner Washington, which set a national age group record in the boys’ 17-18 400 freestyle relay at the same meet.

Warwick Academy’s appearance in Pennsylvania followed on from their superb showing at the Launch into Long Course meet at the Markham Pan Am Centre in Ontario, Canada, last month where they won 23 medals.