It wasn't that long ago that Jacob Lenhart set both the Parkland pool record and school record for scoring in a six-dive meet against Allen when he registered a score of 326.55 during the regular season.

Last weekend, Lenhart went a step further and captured both records again, this time in an 11-dive meet during the Lehigh Valley Conference Championships. Obviously, the record-setting performance was good enough to make Lenhart the LVC champion with a score of 496 and send him into this weekend's District 11 meet as one of the favorites.

Even prior to his performance in the LVC meet, Lenhart was going to be a definite contender in the district meet, but his performance sent a clear message about just how good Lenhart is and how tough it's going to be to beat him.

"It's great to have those records and see my name up there [on the list of record setters at the Parkland natatorium], but there's still more to do," said Lenhart referring to the competition in both the district and PIAA meets.

Last year at districts, Lenhart bested teammate Mitchell Keller to capture the District 11 championship. This season, Keller will again provide competition, as will teammate Josh Anderson, who finished third at the LVC meet on Saturday. Central Catholic's Nick Crouse, who finished second to Lenhart in the LVC meet, won't be competition this weekend as the Vikings drop down to Class 2A in district competition.

"There's a lot of good divers and that just pushes you to do more," said Lenhart of the battle he'll face in districts.

The competition will get even tougher when Lenhart competes in the PIAA Championships next month at Bucknell. Last season, Lenhart finished 15th, but believes he can improve on that finish this season.

"I think I've gotten better and have put in a lot of work, so I'm hoping to have a stronger finish this year than I did last year, but there's a lot of competition and you never know what's going to happen," said Lenhart, who will be heading off to the University of Pittsburgh in the fall to pursue a degree in occupational therapy.

It should be noted, too, that eight of the 14 divers who finished ahead of Lenhart in states last season were seniors and have graduated, helping to clear the field.

To improve his chances in the competitions, Lenhart added more difficult dives to his 11-dive program in an effort to improve his opportunity to get higher scores. Five of the dives in the program are compulsory, but divers can separate themselves from the competition by choosing the six other dives that round out their program.

As a team, Parkland would seem to be in good shape to repeat their team diving championship from last year's district meet, especially having Lenhart, Anderson and Keller all diving well at just the right time.

The district championships are Saturday at Emmaus and the PIAA meet is scheduled for March 15th and 16th at Bucknell University in Lewisburg.