For the first time in recent memory, Northampton picked up medals in the District 11 Swimming Championships when they grabbed fourth place in the 200 yard freestyle relay. The team of seniors Cory Ninos, Benjamin Longacre, Joey Szerencsits and Kyle Iasiello finished with a time of 1:31.70, finishing less than half-a-second ahead of Parkland and grabbing pewter medals for their efforts.

Coach Gwen Whildin is used to competing with a small team and had just nine swimmers qualified for districts, but believes the event went well considering the size of her team and the odds they were up against.

"I think we did pretty good considering the checkered training we had with the weather. It made it very difficult to get any continuity in training and I'm very pleased that we have a relay team that made the podium and got medals for fourth place. It's been a long time since we had any medals on our kids, so I was pleased with that," said Whildin of her team's efforts. "We're having some trouble holding our taper on this second day and not performing as well as we did on the first day."

It looked like Northampton would have a fifth place finish in the 200 yard medley relay when a team made up of Ninos, Longacre, Iasiello and sophomore Steton Weber finished just behind fourth-place Easton, but the team was disqualified for an infraction. The boys 400 yard freestyle relay team of Ninos, Szerencsits, Iasiello and senior Nick Pavlacka finished sixth. Two girls relay teams had top ten finishes with the team of seniors Paige Knouse, Madison Bernal, Emma Steirer and sophomore Rachael Pursell finishing seventh in the 200 yard freestyle relay and eighth in the 400 yard freestyle relay.

Top individual finishes went to Bernal, who finished eighth in the girls 100 yard butterfly and Knouse, who finished ninth in the 50 Yard Freestyle on the girls side. For the boys, Longacre finished tenth, just ahead of Iasiello in the boys 50 Yard Freestyle and collected another tenth place finish in the 100 yard breaststroke. Pavlacka finished tenth in the 100 yard backstroke, one-tenth of a second ahead of Ninos.

Whildin was proud of how her team made it through the uneven training schedule and battled bigger teams for points throughout the meet. The boys finished in eighth place overall and the girls finished the event in ninth.

"We're here with nine guys; five of them are seniors and the other four are underclassmen, so I have high hopes for those four, but it's going to be a rebuilding year next year," explained Whildin. "We've never had more than 15 kids on our swim team, so we're used to it. We only have 11 this year, but we do all right with 11."