The Parkland swimming and diving team sent eight athletes to last week’s PIAA Championships at Bucknell University. Among them were a pair of senior returning medal winners in freestyle sprinter Kayla Johnson and diver Ethan Radio.

Both improved on their medal placing from a year ago and came home with silver medals in the final state of two stellar high school career.

Johnson took second place in both the 50- and 100-yard freestyle events, while Radio earned his third state medal with a second-place finish in diving.

Johnson was seeded second for the 50 free and swam the event in 22.84 seconds in the finals after matching her district time with a 22.95 in preliminaries.

“I’m happy,” she said after finals. “I went a lifetime best, which was all I was looking for. I got a school record too, which I’m thrilled about. I know I’m just going to get faster in the future so I’m excited to see where I can go.”

Downingtown East’s Alexa Fulton won the 50 in a state record time of 22.77.

“I got third last year so I’m just happy I moved up a seed,” Johnson said. “Alexa is a great swimmer and I’m glad I got to swim next to her.”

This year marked the first that Johnson was able to swim in a championship final. As a freshman she swam at states but didn’t get through preliminaries. As a sophomore she competed in the consolation final for the 200-yard freestyle and was going to swim in another the next day before that meet was shut down because of the pandemic.

Last year’s meet didn’t utilize finals. All places were determined by time in prelims. While Johnson took third in the 50 and seventh in the 100 a year ago, those places were based on timed heats and not finals.

“This is really the first year I’ve swam at [championship] finals,” she said.

Radio was making his third trip to states. His first state medal came at the 2020 meet, when he finished fourth and the meet was shut down not long after the boys diving event.

He returned to states last year and picked up his second fourth-place medal. This season he ended his high school career with his best state-meet performance yet, finishing in second place with an 11-dive score of 490.70.

“I came in here wanting to do better than I did last year,” said Radio. “I got fourth last year, so it’s good coming in and getting better places. I increased my score by about 40 points today.”

The future University of Pittsburgh diver said he was pleased with all but one of his 11 dives and he was especially proud of two. One of them was the two and a half tuck he did to finish off the meet and move from third to second place. The other was a gainer one and a half twister.

“Those are the ones I was nervous about going into it,” he said. “But as soon as I got on the board the nervousness went away and I was ready to do it.”

While Johnson and Radio were Parkland’s only state medal winners this year, several other Trojans qualified to compete on the biggest stage Pennsylvania high school swimming and diving has to offer.

Junior Ryan Beltrame finished 12th in diving with a score of 376.

Seniors Nicholas Zaffiro and Claire Weaver capped a pair of great high school careers at the state meet.

Zaffiro finished 25th in the boys individual medley in 1:57.54 and placed 26th in breaststroke at 59.61.

Weaver made the consolation final in the 200-yard freestyle with a 1:55.17 for 16th place in preliminaries. She finished 16th overall with a time of 1:55.26 in the consolation final. In the 500 freestyle Weaver finished 17th (5:10.44), one place away from returning for a consolation final.

Weaver and Johnson also swam on a pair of relay teams. They were joined by sophomores Sophia Cerimele and Madison Roseman in the 200-yard freestyle relay. The foursome was 11th in prelims with a time of 1:38.52 and 13th in finals with a time of 1:39.74.

Johnson, Weaver and Cerimele were joined by junior Ashley Settle for the meet’s final event, the 400 freestyle relay. They finished 17th with a time of 3:36.51, missing the consolation final by one place and .07 seconds as 16th-place Unionville came in at 3:36.44.

Parkland finished 17th in girls team standings and 26th in boys team points. Hatboro-Horsham won the girls meet with 227 points, well head of second-place Conestoga (164) and third-place North Allegheny (148). Seneca Valley edged LaSalle College High School for the boys title, 188-174. North Penn (155) was third.