The accolades multiplied for Liberty’s boys on day two of the District XI Class 3A Swimming Championships last Saturday afternoon at Parkland High School where Hurricane senior Patrick Gilhool was presented with the Dennis A. McGinley Award for outstanding boy swimmer of the district meet and the East Penn Conference Swimmer of the Year Award.

“When I was a freshman, I never expected to be breaking all these records and winning swimmer of the meet, swimmer of the year. It’s really nice knowing all the hard work I put in paid off in the end. This is the result,” Gilhool said.

Gilhool set a district record in the 100 backstroke on Saturday with a time of 48.74, and teammate Danny Lehr won a fourth-place medal in the same event with a time of 55.08.

Said Gilhool, “It really wasn’t my best swim. I missed a bunch of walls but still came out with the pool and district record, so you really can’t complain, and I’ll have a chance to better my time at states.”

Addison Collins, who won an eighth-place state medal in the 50 freestyle last year, is this year’s district champion in the 100 free.

“I checked my time, and I’d never gone that fast before, and I dropped over a second which I was so happy with. Honestly, I had no idea where anybody else was in the pool. I just looked up at the scoreboard to check at the very end,” Collins said. “Today, the 100 meant a lot more to me because of my time, and my 50 wasn’t where I wanted it to be, but I definitely brought that back and did exactly what I wanted in the 100.”

Malcolm Collins won the silver medal in the 100 breaststroke with a time of 59.43.

“Yeah, I was nervous, but I also had a lot of confidence,” he said. “I think overall it went pretty well. I was just relieved it was over and happy with my time.”

Once all scores were tabulated for the two-day event, Liberty’s boys emerged as the silver medalists in team results.

“The four (Gilhool, Collins, Lehr, and Collins) are absolutely fantastic, and they’re the ones who are going to grab all the limelight and rightfully so, but that 400 free relay? They had to finish in the top six,” Coach Foust said.

Tim Wetmore, Corbin Eisenhardt, Wade Wu, and Caleb Stein were the foursome that made that happen after placing fifth in the final event of the day with a time of 3:23.53.

“We needed that, because if we don’t, we don’t get second place overall,” said Foust. “We came in saying we need to beat Nazareth, we need to beat Parkland because they’re seeded heavier, so that was the focus.”