The Emmaus boys swimming team made it through the season undefeated, while the girls team suffered just two losses, both at the hands of rival Parkland High School. Both teams now turn their attention to the District 11 meet coming up this weekend at Parkland High School.
The boys team comes into districts with six different swimmers holding the top qualifying time in various events. Senior Luke Rautzhan holds the top qualifying time in both the 50-yard freestyle and the 100-yard freestyle, giving him the distinction of being the only male swimmer to take the top spot in two events.
Senior Connor Shriver is the top qualifier in the 200-yard freestyle and comes in with the second-best time in the 100-yard backstroke, just 0.32 seconds behind fellow senior Nick Soares. Michael Iacobelli, also a senior, holds the top qualifying time in the 100-yard breaststroke.
While seniors dominate the top spots, sophomore Andrew Taylor picked up the top time in the 200-yard individual medley. Sophomore Ryan DeJohn is number-two in the 100-yard breaststroke behind Iacobelli.
Districts will provide Emmaus swimmers with competition from other schools in lanes next to them. East Penn Conference regular season meets were all held virtually this season.
“Throughout this season, it’s been challenging swimming in the pool against ourselves and not having opponents swimming directly against us, but at the same time I feel like I’ve proven to myself that I don’t need to have the best circumstances to put in good times,” said Shriver. “I think it will give us that extra energy that we’ve been missing, just being able to see your competition instead of just looking at the times and going from there.”
The boys will also have relay teams holding top qualifying times in the 200- and 400-yard freestyle relays and the 200-yard medley relay.
For the girls, three juniors hold top spots in individual events. Avery King and Lauren Sharp share the distinction of holding the best qualifying time in two individual events with Parkland junior Kayla Johnson. King has the fastest time in both the 200- and 500-yard freestyle events, while Sharp is the top qualifier in both the 200-yard IM and 100-yard breaststroke. Chloe Vlaeminck qualified with the top time in the 100-yard butterfly and is second to Sharp in the 200 IM.
The Emmaus team won’t have any relay teams come into districts with the top qualifying times, but their 200-yard medley relay team holds the number-two spot with a qualifying time just .06 seconds slower than the team from Parkland. They also hold two number-three times, coming in behind Southern Lehigh and Parkland in the 200-yard freestyle relay with just under one-second separating them and top seed Southern Lehigh. Emmaus is also positioned third in the 400-yard freestyle, with Parkland at the top and Southern Lehigh second.
Senior Kera Reinhard qualified for both the 200-yard IM and the 500-yard freestyle events at districts. She will also be singing the national anthem as she did last year before the District 11 Class 3A meet. Reinhard is looking forward to being able to see and swim against the people she’s competing against rather than swimming in a virtual meet.
“It will be nice to actually have opponents in the other lanes,” said Reinhard, who believes being able to face off directly against opponents makes a difference. “It at least makes a little bit of a difference because there’s not that same push when you’re swimming only against your teammates. We all found out that we can succeed in the virtual meets, but you miss that competitive team part of the event.”