Last Thursday's swimming meet against Freedom figured to be a good measuring stick for both the Parkland boys and girls teams on how they stacked up against another tough LVC opponent.

Both the Freedom boys and girls suffered just one loss apiece heading into last week's meet, and another close, tough meet for the Trojans could have been expected going in.

But neither the boys nor the girls had much trouble in defeating the Patriots at Freedom High School. The girls remained undefeated on the season with their 115-71 win, and the boys were just as solid in capturing a 121-64 victory.

"We came here with a goal it's on our whiteboard in our locker room just to come here and beat Freedom convincingly," said Chris Strauss. "Just because Emmaus didn't do it convincingly, and we wanted to make sure we could do it convincingly to make sure that we rack up the win when it comes to the end of the year."

Strauss who captured two first place finishes on the day was one of a handful of swimmers that helped the boys to another win on the season. He set the tone early, placing first in the 200 free with a time of 1:45.24.

"I felt pretty comfortable," Strauss said. "In the beginning of it I took it out at a decent speed a little bit faster than I would've liked to. I just held onto it and brought it home."

Along with Colin Orlowski, Adam Sicinski and Rhett Karapoulos, Strauss was a part of the Trojans' 400 free relay team that finished in first place to end the meet. He also picked up second place finishes in the 500 free and 200 free relay.

"It just happened I snuck a little bit out on [Freedom's] Scott [DelFranco] there on the first lap," said Strauss. "And then the rest of my team took care of what we needed to do to get the relay win."

"There's little places for improvement, but overall the boys raced fantastic I thought," said head coach Rob Robitaille. "We had a lot of good times for us. Chris Strauss had his best [200] free."

Strauss who was named a captain this year has steadily improved from a season ago and credits that to his leadership role now for the Trojans.

"Just the feeling of being a captain, a senior, and someone to look up to for the underclassmen," said Strauss. "And really having that extra push to get the job done because you know that there's no one above you that's going to get the job done. You have to get the job done yourself."

Megan Polaha and Erin Jordan were just a few of the swimmers that paced the girls in keeping their perfect record alive. The two, along with Katherine Kapelsohn and Erika Freeman, started the meet with a victory in the 200 medley relay. Polaha and Jordan then combined to finish first in four more events.

Polaha won both the 200 IM and 100 fly, while Jordan captured first in the 500 free and was the only swimmer in the 100 backstroke with a time (59.89 seconds) under one minute.

"At this point in the year everybody is pretty sore [and] everybody is pretty beat up," said Robitaille. "I'm confident going into districts that we'll have some good results. Overall though I thought [Freedom] swam well. I thought we just swam better."