As a senior, David Larsen is looked at to be one of the leaders on the Emmaus swim team and he handles that role in many different ways.

Perhaps the best aspect of Larsen as a leader is that he is looking to pass on what he has learned from teammates who graduated ahead of him on to the swimmers that are coming along now and will find themselves in leadership roles in the near future.

"After three years being here, I've been taught many things by the seniors ahead of me, so I know the ins and outs of how to succeed, so I'm pretty confident," said Larsen. "I'm more about passing on to the next generation; juniors this year, passing on to them what I've learned through my experiences on the swim team."

Larsen swims in both solo and relay events and has become a key part of the team as they head into the last few meets of the season and again, he's looking to use this time to teach juniors how to handle their time as a senior.

"I think we're pretty well stacked for the postseason and we have the chance to do pretty well," Larsen said. "I think our juniors are also in a good position where they can compete hard next year and keep the program strong. I'm looking forward to coming back and supporting them and seeing how well they're handling things after our class is off to college."

Too often, high school athletes don't really take the time to enjoy their success and the success of their team, but while Larsen is as competitive as anybody, he's also enjoying his senior season and knows that life gets a little different after graduation.

"I just want to enjoy all of this and be as good as we can be before we all go off to college and into life after that," said Larsen, who hasn't picked a school yet, but is still waiting to hear from a couple more schools. He's already been accepted at one of his potential colleges and figures to major in Finance or maybe Pre-Law. "It's my senior season and it's been great so far and I'm looking forward to even more success."

"David is the type of kid that makes me feel good as a coach," said Hornet boss Tim O'Connor. "I have to say that just the tenor of this senior class has been fantastic and they know it's not all about them, it's about keeping this team going. And David exemplifies that because he's all about the team's success both now and in the future.

"At the end of the day, these kids won't come back to me as swimmers. They'll come back as adults who are hopefully, leaders, and David is going to be very successful. He has developed so much as a person, it's almost unbelievable."

While the present looks pretty strong for Emmaus swimming, there have been signs throughout the season that the younger swimmers are going to be ready to take over when their time comes. O'Connor pointed out one of those young swimmers, who had a particularly good meet this past weekend against Wilson West Lawn, mentioning the success of freshman Tom Schlechter, who set a personal-best time of 5:05.89 in the 500-yard freestyle to win the event just ahead of sophomore teammate John Woltornist.

"He set a personal best by about five seconds today and he was at morning practice yesterday and is going through midterms and he's persevering," said O'Connor of Schlechter's performance. "He's not looking at everything going on around him and worrying about everything. He realizes he's got an opportunity and he's taking advantage of it all."

O'Connor thinks his team is in a pretty good spot right now even though some of his swimmers haven't put up their best times of late. One reason is that O'Connor has been stressing things to work on and believes that now that his swimmers have fixed any deficiencies in their mechanics, they will start to put up better times, just in time for districts and the state meet coming next month.

Against Wilson West Lawn, the boys picked up a 106-72 win to advance to 8-2 on the season to go along with their 6-0 record in the Lehigh Valley Conference. The girls fell to Wilson 111-75 and are now 4-6 on the season, with a 4-2 mark in the LVC.

"Our kids are improving in a lot of areas. The catch now is to just add the speed to it," said O'Connor.

In diving, Anna Overholts and Serena Speer finished first and second, respectively, against Wilson West Lawn, while Ally Davies finished fifth. Overholts also finished second in an earlier meet against Central Catholic.