Parkland senior Nick Zaffiro is heading to states after taking District 11 championships in both the 200-yard individual medley and the 100-yard breaststroke over the weekend.

Other Parkland swimmers will wait to see if their times are good enough to qualify for spots in the PIAA championships which will be held next week at Bucknell University.

Zaffiro won the 200 IM last Friday with a time of 1:54.14, finishing .17 seconds ahead of Emmaus’ Andrew Taylor for the gold medal. Zaffiro came into the event seeded second behind Taylor and cut :04.75 seconds off his qualifying time to get the win.

“I felt pretty confident coming in,” said Zaffiro. “I am friends with the other guys (who were swimming in the race), and I knew it was going to be a fun race because they are all good. The only way I could get a time like that was swimming against my friend Andrew (Taylor) because we really push each other, and he pushed me to the very end today. We’re rivals, but we are also great friends.”

In the breaststroke, Zaffiro was seeded third behind Liberty’s Malcolm Collins and Pocono Mountain West’s Carter Mui. Having the target on someone else’s back gave Zaffiro some added inspiration and he shaved nearly three full seconds from his qualifying time and finished in a time of 58.49 to push Collins and Mui down a spot into second and third.

“That felt good to get that win and again, it was because I knew the other guys were so good and they pushed me to swim faster and better and that was important in that race,” admitted Zaffiro of the win in the breaststroke. “I needed everything I could get to win that one.”

Parkland came into the event leading in the team standings after Ethan Radio won the district diving competition a week earlier with teammate Ryan Beltrame finishing second. Emmaus and Liberty both got off to fast starts and would surpass Parkland in the team standings. When the waters in the pool had finally calmed by late Saturday afternoon, Emmaus won its 15th straight district championship with a score of 475. Liberty (332) finished second, Nazareth (312) was third and Parkland placed fourth with a score of 281.5.

Liberty’s Patrick Gilhool was the story of the weekend when he not only won four gold medals but set new district and Parkland High School pool records in the 100-yard butterfly and 100-yard backstroke and as a member of the 200-yard medley team. Gilhool was named the East Penn Conference Swimmer of the Year and won the Dennis A. McGinley Award as the best swimmer at the District 11 championships.

The following are results from the District 11 Class 3A girls Swimming and Diving Championships, including the top five finishers in each event along with all Parkland 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.

200 Medley Relay: 1. Liberty (Daniel Lehr, Malcolm Collins, Patrick Gilhool, Addison Collins) 1:32.09, 2. Emmaus 1:34.29, 3. Southern Lehigh 1:38.75, 4. Freedom 1:41.78, 5. Nazareth 1:42.12, 6. Parkland (Eric Linchuk, Blane Christ, Harrison Kim, Anshul Dadayyapally) 1:46.28.

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, 13. Marcus Moreef (Parkland) 1:54.23, 14. Gabriel Krizel (Parkland) 1:54.77, 16. Eric Linchuk (Parkland) 2:01.48.

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, 12. Blane Christ (Parkland) 2:14.25.

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, 14. Anshul Dadayyapally (Parkland) 23.96.

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, 10. Colton Chung (Parkland) 57.44, 11. Harrison Kim (Parkland) 57.49.

200 Freestyle relay: 1. Liberty (Patrick Gilhool, David Lehr, Malcolm Collins, Addison Collins) 1:23.88, 2. Nazareth 1:26.02, 3. Emmaus 1:27.59, 4. Parkland (Nicholas Zaffiro, Marcus Moreef, Anshul Dadayyapally Luke Willard) 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, 13. Anshul Dadayyapally (Parkland) 52.83, 15. Danneel Khais (Parkland) 52.97.

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, 9. Marcus Morreef (Parkland) 5:09.34, 13. Colton Chung (Parkland) 5:18.56.

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, 12. Eric Linchuk (Parkland) 58.81, 14. tie Gabriel Krizel (Parkland), Danneel Khais (Parkland) 1:00.08.

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, 5. Ryan DeJohn (Emmaus) 1:02.58, 6. Harrison Kim (Parkland) 1:03.4, 16. Blane Christ (Parkland) 1:06.81.

400 Freestyle Relay: 1. Emmaus (Alex Magditch, Seth Metzger, Andrew Lamack, Andrew Taylor) 3:09.37, 2. Nazareth 3:12.07, 3. Parkland (Luke Willard, Marcus Moreef, Danneel Khais, Nicholas Zaffiro) 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