Liberty High School swimmers, Jacob Jones, Brandon Hlavaty, Brandon Merkert, and Evan Smith clinched the gold medal in the 200 free relay with a time of 1:28.84 at the District 11 Swimming Championships on Feb. 28 at Parkland High School.

"It felt awesome," said Smith. "Standing on the podium as a team with those three other guys was awesome."

The Hurricanes time was .03 seconds ahead of Emmaus, who placed second.

"It was neck-and-neck with the first person from Emmaus. The second and third [swimmers] from Emmaus brought them in the lead with a body length on us," Smith said.

Smith, who was the Hurricane anchor, reasoned that his team would probably place second. In fact, Smith had seen the seed times, knowing the Hurricanes were supposed to lose by two or three seconds, but in the end, the Liberty junior believed in his team and his coaches and what they had done with them to taper.

"I went in, honestly, thinking we'll get second. That's fine. But I came out of the turn and didn't see [the Emmaus swimmer] next to me," said Smith.

About ten seconds passed before Smith realized what he had done.

"I didn't know we won till I saw our team freaking out," he said.

Jones, Sean Vannata, Merkert, and Smith also competed in the 400 free relay, placing third.

"Going into the 400 free relay, we were up by about 25 points," said Smith.

Overall, the Liberty boys swim team placed second in the district meet, behind Emmaus.

"It was a huge thing between us and Freedom for second place," Smith said.

Jones, Hlavaty, Merkert, and Smith will compete in the 200 free relay at the PIAA State Swimming Championships, scheduled for March 12-15 at Bucknell University.

"It's been the best team I've ever been on. Just the camaraderie of the team. Everybody loves each other like a brother, and it's been different this year because we have fun practicing. Sean [Vannata] as our captain controls the team. Everybody listens to him. Everybody loves him. He's the perfect leader," said Smith.

Other finishers in the top-five for Liberty were: Evan Smith who took fourth in the 50 free and the Reid Rossi who was fifth in the 100 butterfly. Sean Vanatta was fifth in the 100 backstroke and Nolan Vanatta was fifth in the breaststroke.