A pair of highly competitive invitational swim meets were held over the holidays and the Emmaus boys put together strong finishes in each meet.

The Cumberland Valley Holiday Invite was held two days after Christmas and the New Year’s Challenge was held at Bucknell University on January 4th.

At Cumberland Valley, the host team took the top spot in the team standings with a final score of 519 with Souderton and Emmaus battling for second. The Hornets came up just short and finished with a final score of 480 to Souderton’s 481, which took second place.

In individual meets, a pair of Hornet seniors took first and third-place finishes in their events.

Griffin Messenlehner posted a personal best time of 46.60 to win the 100-yard freestyle over Souderton’s Gian Carlo Bocchino, who finished just off the pace at 46.64.

In the 200 IM, Messenlehner took third with a time of 2:02.52, just ahead of teammate Graham Lovett, a sophomore, who swam the event in 2:04.50 for a fourth-place finish.

Senior Brady King edged Chambersburg’s Cristian Pong in the 100-yard backstroke when he swam a 52.18 with Pong coming in at 52.79. King returned in the 100-yard butterfly to take third.

The two seniors were members of both the 200 and 400-yard freestyle relay teams at Cumberland Valley.

Emmaus took third in the 400 freestyle relay with the team of Messenlehner, King, Roman Herman and Reid Lovett, posting a time of 3:15.68. In the 200 freestyle relay, Joe Lyons took Lovett’s spot and the Hornets finished fourth, just over two seconds behind a team from Souderton that captured first place.

The event at Bucknell proved to be even more challenging and included rival swimmers from Parkland High School.

Team points are not kept, but in individual events, King earned a pair of second-place finishes in the 200 and 500-yard freestyle events. In the 200, the senior finished with a time of 1:44.90 and he finished the 500 in 4:42.24.

Junior Bryce King achieved a personal best in the 100-yard backstroke with a time of 53.97, good enough for third place.

The top relay finish for Emmaus was in the 400-yard freestyle relay where Lovett, Herman, Brady King, and Julian Vlaeminck finished fifth with a time of 3:17.01. The Hornets took sixth in the 200-yard medley relay and battled head-to-head with Parkland in the 200-yard freestyle with the Trojans edging Emmaus 1:29.53 to 1:29.60, finishing sixth and seventh respectively.

The New Year’s Challenge also included a diving competition with Emmaus’ Doug Cornish finishing seventh.

Emmaus has an EPC dual meet this week against Easton and then competes in the Wilson Relays at Wilson West Lawn High School this weekend.