Another swimming streak remains intact. For the 15th straight year, the Emmaus boys won the team championship at the District 11 Class 3A swimming and diving championships. This year they were able to beat second-place Liberty by a 475-332 score even though the Hurricanes saw record-setting performances from some of their members.

With no competitors in the diving portion of the event, which was held a week earlier, Emmaus came in trailing Easton, Northampton and rival Parkland in the team standings.

Parkland’s Ethan Radio took gold in diving and teammate Ryan Beltrame finished second to give the Trojans the team lead coming into swimming this past weekend in their home pool.

Liberty won the 200-yard medley relay with a district record time of 1:32.09 to open the swimming competition with Emmaus finishing second with a team of seniors AJ Lamack and Alex Magditch and juniors Ryan DeJohn and Ethan Ferris. The event reshuffled the standings with Parkland remaining on top, Liberty moving into second, Easton third and Emmaus fourth. Emmaus swimmers finished fifth, sixth and seventh in the 200-yard freestyle to move the Hornets into second place, trailing Parkland 101-75.

Parkland’s Nick Zaffiro edged out Emmaus junior Andrew Taylor by just .17 seconds in the 200-yard IM, but strong finishes by senior Bobby Perose and sophomore Logan Hartman allowed the Hornets to close the gap behind Parkland to 126-123.

Liberty’s Patrick Gilhool turned in a record-setting performance in the 100-yard butterfly, finishing in 48.18 seconds to beat the record he set last year when he finished in 50.58 in the event. Lamack’s second-place finish was good enough to push Emmaus to the top of the team standings with a 228-148 lead over Liberty.

The Hornets led through the rest of the competition. For Gilhool though, there was one more record to set when he finished the 100-yard backstroke with a record time of 48.74 seconds beating the time of Freedom’s Peter Conzola, who set the mark of 49.21 back in 2013.

The only gold medal individual performance for Emmaus came when Taylor won the 500-yard freestyle with a time of 4:40.94, a little more than four seconds faster than Nazareth’s Ethan Coffman, who placed second. The win guarantees Taylor a spot at states, which will be held next week at Bucknell University.

“That was a tough race, but I felt pretty confident coming in and I was able to just focus on the race and on what I needed to do to win,” said Taylor. “It feels good to be going back to states and I am looking forward to competing.”

The event wrapped up with the 400-yard freestyle relay where Emmaus seniors Magditch, Lamack and Seth Metzger matched up with Taylor to win gold with a time of 3:09.37 to send them to states.

“I think having those guys there with me is going to be great,” Taylor said. “To get to swim with those senior guys at states is going to be something special and I am hoping that we have other guys who get bids to go to states.”

Swimmers who don’t win gold can still qualify for states based on their times when compared to other swimmers from around the commonwealth. Those bids will be announced sometime this week.

Liberty finished the two days with six gold-medal performances, but because Emmaus was able to get other swimmers placing high in events, they were able to breeze to the team championship.

“I always tell our swimmers that first place is great but it also comes down to what you do in the rest of the race,” said coach Emmaus head coach Tim O’Connor. “If you don’t have that depth and have guys competing to beat out the guy next to them for any spot in the event, you can still get beat.”

The following are results from the 2021-22 District 11 Class 3A Championships. Results include top five finishers in each event an all Emmaus finishers.

Team Scores

1. Emmaus 475, 2. Liberty 332, 3. Nazareth 312, 4. Parkland 281.5, 5. So. Lehigh 150, 6. Easton 134.5, 7. Whitehall 121, 8. Freedom 108, 9. Pocono Mt. West 86, 10. Stroudsburg 62, 11. Northampton 55, 12. East Stroudsburg So. 39, 13. Pocono Mt. East 35, 14. Allen 24, 15. Dieruff 10.

Medley Relay: 1. Liberty (Daniel Lehr, Malcolm Collins, Patrick Gilhool, Addison Collins) 1:32.09, 2. Emmaus (Andrew Lamack, Ryan DeJohn, Ethan Ferris, Alex Magditch) 1:34.29, 3. Southern Lehigh 1:38.75, 4. Freedom 1:41.78, 5. Nazareth 1:42.12.

200 Freestyle: 1. Eric Camden (So. Lehigh) 1:43.4, 2. Ethan Coffman (Nazareth) 1:43.5, 3. Aaron Stinner (Whitehall) 1:45.34, 4. Luke Willard (Parkland) 1:46.77, 5. Jack Reppert (Emmaus) 1:47.06, 16. Logan Shriver (Emmaus) 1:48.46, 7. James Manley (Emmaus) 1:49.77, 15. James Taylor (Emmaus) 1:57.25.

200 Individual medley: 1. Nicholas Zaffiro (Parkland) 1:54.14, 2. Andrew Taylor (Emmaus) 1:54.31, 3. Malcolm Collins (Liberty) 1:03.13, 4. Mui Carger (Pocono Mt. West) 1:03.66, 5. Bobby Perose (Emmaus) 2:03.66, 6. Logan Hartman (Emmaus) 1:04.07, 13. Garrett Longbons (Emmaus) 2:14.31.

50 Freestyle: 1. Addison Collins (Liberty) 21.01, 2. Alex Magditch (Emmaus) 21.28, 3. Daniel Lehr (Liberty) 21.41, 4. Jack Hasker (Nazareth) 21.57, 5. Tyler Tinsley (Nazareth) 22.22, 6. Seth Metzger (Emmaus) 22.26, 8. tie Ethan Ferris (Emmaus), Ryan DeJohn (Emmaus) 22.35.

100 Butterfly: 1. Patrick Golhool (Liberty) *48.18, 2. Andrew Lamack (Emmaus) 51.45, 3. Andrew Wendling (So. Lehigh) 51.50, 4. Ethan Ferris (Emmaus) 52.93, 5. Cole Coffman (Nazareth) 53.1, 7. Griffin Messenlehner (Emmaus) 54.7, 8. James Manley (Emmaus) 54.97.

200 Freestyle relay: 1. Liberty (Patrick Gilhool, David Lehr, Malcolm Collins, Addison Collins) 1:23.88, 2. Nazareth 1:26.02, 3. Emmaus (Ethan Ferris, Ryan DeJohn, Seth Metzger, Andrew Taylor) 1:27.59, 4. Parkland 1:31.08, 5. Freedom 1:34.26.

100 Freestyle: 1. Addison Collins (Liberty) 45.52, 2. Alex Magditch (Emmaus) 47.04, 3. Jack Hasker (Nazareth) 48.37, 4. Seth Metzger (Emmaus) 48.47, 5. Tyler Tinsley (Nazareth) 49.06, 11. Jared Petre (Emmaus) 51.86, 12. Jack Engel (Emmaus) 52.06,

500 Freestyle: 1. Andrew Taylor (Emmaus) 4:40.94, 2. Ethan Coffman (Nazareth) 4:45.23, 3. Aaron Stinner (Whitehall) 4:47.15, 4. Luke Willard (Parkland) 4:50.18, 5. Andrew Ehert (Freedom) 4:50.97, 6. Jack Reppert (Emmaus) 4:53.53, 7. Logan Shriver (Emmaus) 5:54.19, 10. James Taylor (Emmaus) 5:09.59.

100 Backstroke: 1. Patrick Gilhool (Liberty) *48.74, 2. Andrew Wendling (So. Lehigh) 52.32, 3. Andrew Lamack (Emmaus) 52.69, 4. David Lehr (Liberty) 55.08, 5. Cole Coffman (Nazareth) 55.8, 6. Logan Hartman (Emmaus) 55.9, 7. Bobby Perose (Emmaus) 56.28, 8. Griffin Messenlehner (Emmaus) 56.54.

100 Breaststroke: 1. Nicholas Zaffiro (Parkland) 58.49, 2. Malcolm Collins (Liberty) 59.43, 3. Carter Mui (Pocono Mt. West) 1:00.85, 4. Ian Thomas (Whitehall) 1:02.04, 4. Ryan DeJohn (Emmaus) 1:02.58, 7. Garrett Longbons (Emmaus) 1:04.44, 15. Jack Nigel (Emmaus) 1:06.79.

400 Freestyle Relay: 1. Emmaus (Alex Magditch, Seth Metzger, Andrew Lamack, Andrew Taylor) 3:09.37, 2. Nazareth 3:12.07, 3. Parkland 3:21.77, 4. Southern Lehigh 3:22.6, 5. Liberty 3:23.53.

Diving: 1. Ethan Radio (Parkland) 485.10, 2. Ryan Beltrame (Parkland) 336.1, 3. Boden Burkhart (Northampton) 321.85, 4. Bradley Kunz (Parkland) 280.85, 5. Ian Berry (Easton) 276.35.

*Denotes District 11 record