The Whitehall swim team racked up a few wins last week as they look to gather momentum heading into the midway point of the season.

Both the girls and boys defeated William Allen, Allentown Central Catholic and Dieruff. The girls bested Allen 96-56, Allentown Central Catholic, 97-69, and Dieruff, 132-28. The boys prevailed 119-11 over Allen, 97-72 over Allentown Central Catholic, and 122-45 over Dieruff.

With the culmination of those three virtual meets, they have six completed contests in the books. That figure includes a made-up date with Southern Lehigh. Head coach Pete Rile said that both squads fell to the Spartans.

Those three Eastern Pennsylvania Conference wins catapulted the girls overall record to 3-3, while the boys also sit at 3-3. This week’s snowstorm forced the postponement of Wednesday’s virtual meets against Parkland and Salisbury, and they’ll resume action on Feb. 5 with a tri-meet slated.

Rile said that it was nice to compete against teams whose swimmers were more evenly matched, specifically citing the meet against ACC.

“It was nice to get teams that were more of our caliber,” he said.

Rile said that the boys meet against the Vikings featured a number of “virtual” touch races that went in favor of Whitehall.

“That made all the difference there for the boys,” said Rile.

He said that the girls built a bigger cushion against ACC and won handily.

In those meets, a number of Zephyrs had multiple first-place finishes, including Ian Thomas, Aaron Stinner, Connor Barnes and Lindsay Solderitch.

Stinner was tops in the 100 Butterfly, finishing in 57.80, while also winning the 200 Individual Medley in 2:11.08.

Ian Thomas was first in the 100 freestyle, touching in 53.51, and also led the pack in the 100 Breaststroke with a 1:08.14 mark.

Connor Barnes earned two firsts, first in the 200 freestyle with a 2:07.49 mark, and later in the 500 freestyle, touching the wall in 6:14.22.

Solderitch won both the 100 Breaststroke and the 50 freestyle, hitting the wall in 1:20.65 during the former, while touching in 28.65 in the latter.

Matthew Hilbert also claimed a first, winning the 100 Backstroke in 1:07.79.

Additionally, the boys were tops in the 400 Freestyle Relay as Stinner, Barnes, Brandon Deutsch and Thomas combined for a 3:48.15 mark.

Rile said that with all the upheaval this season, they’ve had to adjust their philosophy. He said that they’re concentrating more on sprinting rather than strength and endurance. With limited practice time, he’s opted for getting them as ready as they can be for their individual races. In past years he had more time to plug in a number of swimmers during the course of a season, but with the abbreviated schedule and less time in the pool, he said he’s had to focus on swimmers who are on knocking on the door of a district qualifying berth. It’s the environment he and his coaching peers are facing this season.

“We want to give these kids more opportunities with the events they’re swimming,” he said.

He wants to help his swimmers realize their goals and give them as many chances to swim their top races so they can climb the qualifying ladder and represent Whitehall at the District 11 Swimming and Diving Championships.