Liberty senior Patrick Gilhool became a state swimming champion last Wednesday night when he clinched first place in the 100 butterfly at the PIAA Class 3A Swimming Championships at Bucknell University, but the gold medalist needed to put his hardware aside to be the Hurricanes’ lead swimmer in the 200 free relay soon afterward.

Minutes later, gold medals multiplied for the Hurricanes when Gilhool, Danny Lehr, Malcolm Collins, and Addison Collins, won the state championship in the 200 free relay.

“I finished, I had my excitement, I was a state champion, but I knew I had to get back in the zone for this 200 free relay because I had to be there so we could all be state champions,” Gilhool said. “I wanted to get a lead for the boys. I did that. Everyone swam their part. Everyone swam great. We all did our jobs, and that’s why we won.”

Contributing in a big way to the relay win was Lehr, who dove in second and had a split time of :20.8.

“I didn’t even know about that, but that makes me feel really good, coming from my head coach, telling me how good I swam and relying on that win on me,” Lehr said. “When I finished and looked up at the scoreboard, I was shocked myself. I had no clue I went that fast, but it felt great. The gold medal, it’s very heavy, but it’s what we’ve been working for all year, and we knew if we worked hard enough, this would be the outcome, and here we are with our gold medals.”

Malcolm Collins dove in third, knowing there could be no let up.

“Right when I dove in, I just went in to go fast,” he said. “I wasn’t thinking about anyone near me. I just sprinted it, I took two breaths, I didn’t care about anything else and wanted to touch the wall first. We worked so hard for this, it’s truly an honor to get first place.”

Addison Collins anchored for the ‘Canes and out touched Seneca Valley’s Haihan Xu by .13 seconds.

“As the last event of the first day of this meet, it’s always the best event to win for sure,” Addison Collins said. “We’re a really versatile group, and I love these guys. We grew up together swimming, so it’s an amazing accomplishment for all of us.”

And as the Hurricane foursome swam their hearts out, Coach Reik Foust and assistant coaches Evan Kocon and Jeff Matyus could do nothing but watch and hope and believe.

“You trust the guys. You just want to make sure everything works for them, but as a coach, you have no control of what they do right now, and certainly you have no control over anybody else in the race, so you’re completely helpless. I just stand there, and it’s like, please let this be good, please let this be good,” Foust said.

The Hurricanes’ 200 free relay time was 1:23.18.

Gilhool’s fly time was :47.69.

Due to a delay of the award ceremony for earlier events, Gilhool’s wait time to swim the fly was longer than expected.

“I said, ‘Patrick, you gotta not worry about these awards right now. We’ll figure this all out,’” said Liberty coach Reik Foust. “I said, ‘You gotta get in.’ He got in just for a little bit. He got out and said, ‘Reik, I’m gonna go out in a :21.9, and I’m just gonna let it fly and see what happens.’ He went out in a :21.9. He was just nice and relaxed.”

Gilhool was the top seed, and he knew what that meant.

“I wanted to win, I was seeded first by a good margin, I knew I could do it, and I knew I needed to drop time to win. I knew everyone was coming for me, so I took it out fast, and then I could sense I was ahead on that last 12 1/2 and then put my head down and rode it home as fast as possible,” Gilhool said. “It was just the realization. I’ve been working so hard for this. I had a lot of pressure, but it was almost a relief that all the time and dedication I put in paid off.”

Addison Collins won a fourth place medal in the 50 freestyle with a time of :20.73.

“I could’ve been a little faster, but I did feel really good about that. I’m just glad about my splits (:19.92, :21.76) in the other two relays,” he said.

The team of Gilhool, Lehr, Collins, and Collins won the silver medal in the first event of the day, the 200 medley relay, with a time of 1:32.54. Conestoga won gold with a time of 1:32.45.

“Patrick and Addison may be the fastest back half of the medley in the country,” said Coach Foust.

Lehr led off in the backstroke, followed by Malcolm Collins in the breaststroke, Gilhool in the fly, and Addison Collins in the free.

“It is hard, coming back from prelims after waking up early and having to swim three events this morning, but we trained for this all year,” said Lehr. “Those thousand-yard practices are exactly what we do this for. It couldn’t have gone any better than it did. I’m so proud of everybody I swam with.”

The Hurricanes returned to Bucknell the following day when Gilhool won his second individual gold medal, this time in the 100 back in :47.57. The Hurricane senior was also named the 2022 PIAA Swimmer of the Meet.