Coming into the season, Emmaus swim team head coach Tim O’Connor talked about depth. Having swimmers who can win events is great, but second and third-place finishers also gain points for their teams. For someone to win an event and then have their opponents conquer the next few spots essentially means that the opponent picked up more team points in that event despite not touching the wall first.

Depth tripped up the Emmaus boys in their annual rivalry meet against Parkland recently. The Hornets won all three relay events and eight of the nine individual races, but fell to Parkland for the first time since February of 2004, by a score of 97-89.

“We have some talent, but they just had a lot more going for them tonight and they swam great, from top to bottom,” said O’Connor. “They swam in bunches, and they were motivated. They were more motivated to beat us than we were to beat them and that was evident in a lot of the races.”

Senior Logan Shriver and junior Griffin Messenlehner both collected four first-place swims for the Hornets. Both were part of the 400-yard freestyle relay team that took first and Messenlehner was also on the 200 medley team, while Shriver was on the 200 freestyle team for Emmaus.

Logan Hartman joined the pair as part of the 400 freestyle team. In individual events, Hartman took first in the 200 individual medley and the 100-yard backstroke. Messenlehner took wins in the 50 and 100-yard freestyle events and Shriver was the top swimmer in the 200 and 500-yard freestyle.

Sophomore Andersen Borst finished with three first-place swims as well. He doubled up on relay teams with wins in the 200 freestyle and 200 medley and also took first in the 100-yard butterfly.

The two teams were in a 15-15 tie after the first two events when lack of depth started to hit Emmaus. Hartman won the 200 IM with a comfy margin, but Parkland swimmers took three of the next four spots with only Borst breaking up the string with a third-place finish.

The scoring gave Parkland the lead at 24-22. Messenlehner then took the top spot in the 50-yard freestyle, but the next three spots went to Parkland swimmers.

Parkland has long been the gold standard in diving, and the Trojans swept the top three spots with Emmaus divers Doug Cornish, Robbie Barnes, and Nick Heffner finishing behind them.

Emmaus won more events than Parkland at the meet, but depth determined the winning team. The only individual race won by Parkland came in the 100-yard breaststroke when Ethan Coleman edged Garrett Longbons by .31 seconds.

Generally, the result of the Emmaus and Parkland meet decides the East Penn Conference championship, which Emmaus has won every season since 2005, going back to days before the EPC reformed when the league was known as the Lehigh Valley Conference.

The Hornets have also won each of the last 15 District 11 championships, most times with Parkland in second place.

The Hornets are 4-1 against EPC teams this season and 6-2 overall. Parkland holds a 4-0 record with all of their meets being against EPC opponents.

Much of the upcoming schedule is comprised of invitational meets, with Emmaus competing in the Cumberland Valley Holiday Invitational and then in the New Year’s Challenge at Bucknell University. The Wilson Relays come up on Jan. 13. Squeezed among those invitationals are dual meets against Allen and Easton

“We’re not going to talk about this meet tonight with the kids,” said O’Connor “I’m going to let them go home and we’ll probably talk about it maybe on Saturday and even just let it ride tomorrow. It’s just a big, emotional meet and it’s been a long time since we’ve been swept. We have to regroup and be better, but what a great time to be able to work on that.”

Parkland 97, Emmaus 89

200 medley relay: 1. Emmaus (Griffin Messenlehner, Carson Mosel, Anderson Borst, Garrett Longbons) 1:39.85, 2. Parkland 1:40.71, 3. Parkland 1:42.19;

200 freestyle: 1. Logan Shriver (E) 27.38, 2. Pedro Teran (P) 27.89, Dominic Faenza 28.15;

200 individual medley: 1. Logan Hartman (E) 2:00.27, 2. Colton Chung (P) 2:02.89, 3. Anderson Borst (E) 2:03.49;

50 freestyle: 1. Griffin Messenlehner (E) 22.20, 2. Jacob Piccini (P) 22.22, 3. Thomas Price (P) 23.26;

Diving: 1. Bradley Kunz (P) 250.25, 2. Harry Epstein (P) 183.55, 3. Charlie Epstein (P) 174.25;

100 butterfly: 1. Anderson Borst (E) 52.99, 2. Colton Chung (P) 54.57, 3. Thomas Price (P) 55.22;

100 freestyle: 1. Griffin Messenlehner (E) 48.70, 2. Jocob Piccini (P) 48.81, 3. Dannik Khais (P) 49.09;

500 freestyle: 1. Logan Shriver (E) 4:48.44, 2. Dominic Faenza (P) 4:54.73, 3. Pierce Brundage (P) 4:55.94;

200 freestyle relay: 1. Emmaus (Anderson Borst, Julian Vlaeminck, Reid Lovett, Logan Shriver) 1:31.05, 2. Parkland 1:33.05, 3. Emmaus (Robbie Barnes, Matthew Sirignano, Brady Hazlett, Joe Lyons) 1:36.79;

100 backstroke: 1. Logan Hartman (E) 54.29, 2. Pedro Teran (P) 54.76, 3. Gabe Krizel (P) 57.28;

100 breaststroke: 1. Ethan Coleman (P) 1:02.34, 2. Garrett Longbons (E) 1:02.65, 3. Pierce Brundage (P) 1:04.67.

400 freestyle relay: 1. Emmaus (Logan Shriver, Julian Vlaekinck, Griffin Messenlehner, Logan Hartman) 3:16.49, 2. Parkland 3:19.11, 3. Parkland 3:25.13.