Liberty’s girls swim team opened their meet against Southern Lehigh with a win in the 200 medley relay but came up short in a 100-83 loss to the Spartans on Jan. 9 at Liberty.

“On the girls side, we knew [Southern Lehigh] were gonna be good,” said Liberty coach Reik Foust. “The fact that we couldn’t fill events was gonna hurt us on the girls side. Ultimately we did, but it got to a point where we weren’t going to be able to catch up with them.”

Lilah McClarin, Leah Onia, Katie Bruno, and Sophie O’Hara scored the top relay points in the medley (1:59.47).

Onia went on to win the 200 IM (2:28.33), and Bruno came in second in the 100 butterfly (1:06.23), out touched by Solehi’s Cami Johnson (1:06.07).

Eva Madeira won the diving event with 178.45 points.

McClarin came in first in the 100 backstroke (1:08.01), and Onia won the 100 breaststroke (1:11.51).

“My last 50, going into my turns, I was starting to feel the lactic acid build up, but I knew I had to push through and kick it in and finish it up,” Onia said. “I was aware of [Southern Lehigh’s Gianna Cusumano] for probably the first 50. I was a little long on one of my turns, but I made up for it in the open waters.”

In the last event of the girls meet, Sophie Terry, Elle Surowiecki, McClarin, and Avery McKeon came in second in the 400 free relay (4:26.27).

“This ended up being our first meet coming out of the holidays,” said Coach Foust. “We pretty much focused on trying to swim fast at this meet, and we had 99 percent best times.”