There's an old adage that a draw is like kissing your sister. The Parkland and Emmaus swim teams know all about that feeling, since they seem to constantly split the conference championship, with the Emmaus boys and Parkland girls taking home titles.

The same thing happened last week when the Emmaus boys downed Parkland 111-75, while the girls lost to Parkland's girls 104.5-81.5 in the final regular season meet.

"My wife's always happy about that, she thinks both programs should always leave happy; I tell her I'm never happy and she understands," said Emmaus head coach Tim O'Connor with a laugh. "I was very pleased with some moments that our girls had today. One was Claire Frank, a senior, swimming the 50 free and getting first place. She's really wanted a good senior year and she's done a good job."

O'Connor surprised Frank when he put her in the 100 breaststroke, because he wanted her experience in that event in case the meet was close. Frank finished fourth and was just .13 seconds out of third.

"She did a really nice job tonight and I'm really pleased with the development of her as a swimmer, and her leadership, most importantly," said O'Connor. "She really cares about her own swimming as well as the team's."

Frank helped the Lady Hornets grab their first lead of the meet in the 50 freestyle when she captured first place. Emmaus' Lexi Ruth and Parkland's Alex Bodnar tied for second in the event and Miranda O'Donald took fourth.

The results put Emmaus one point ahead of Parkland at the time as the teams headed into the diving portion of the meet. Jess Hurlburt won the diving to preserve Emmaus' lead. Hurlburt finished just 1.6 points away from tying the Parkland pool record with a score of 279.70.

The depth of the Parkland girls team, featuring swimmers like Siena Salvaggio, Erika Freeman, Tori Connolly and Kira Karopoulos, eventually wore down Emmaus as the Lady Trojans placed multiple finishers in the top four to prevent Emmaus from hanging too close as the meet went on.

On the boys side, senior Carter Paules recorded individual wins in the 200 individual medley and 100 breaststroke, while Ethan Carr took first in the 100 butterfly and 100 backstroke.

"I think we had a great performance today, but I think we can definitely do better at districts," said Paules. "Overall, we did well."

While O'Connor was happy with the boys title, which he called well deserved, he continues to preach that they need to bring more intensity to the pool.

In fact, to stress the need for intensity, O'Connor nixed the pre-meet ritual of dumping water from the Emmaus pool into Parkland's pool and having the swimmers pound out a beat with paddleboards. It's not the first time that O'Connor has suspended the tradition, a strategy that he only uses for when he believes his team needs to show a more competitive spirit.

As a senior, Paules wasn't necessarily happy with O'Connor's decision, but he understands where he's coming from when his coach talks about needing more intensity.

"We tried to keep it a little more formal this year and like coach said, 'keep it a little more business and treat it like a business meeting,'" said Paules. "I think that's great, but I think doing that stuff brings up the moralle, but we were able to keep the moralle up even though we didn't do that stuff."

The swimmers now go into their tapering period as they prepare for the District 11 meet, which will be held at Parkland February 27-28. The District 11 Diving Championships are Saturday at Emmaus.