Siena Salvaggio turned silver into gold. The Parkland swimmer came home from the PIAA Championship Meet at Bucknell University with two gold medals for her performance in the 50- and 100-yard freestyle events after capturing silver in those events last year.

Last year, Salvaggio missed gold by the slimmest of margins in the 100 freestyle, finishing just .01 seconds behind Hershey's Madelyn Veith. Next year, she can set her sights on chasing down another Hershey swimmer, Meaghen Raab, who holds the PIAA record in the 100 freestyle. Salvaggio's time of 49.61 seconds in the 100 fell just short of Raab's time of 49.01set three years ago. Salvaggio's time of 23.10 in the 50 freestyle set a new Parkland school record.

"I definitely used that as motivation to get through the season and work hard every day on all of the little things that I can improve, technique-wise as well as just improve my racing skills," said Salvaggio.

The medals capped off a big week for the Parkland junior, who verbally committed to Penn State earlier in the week.

"It's a great opportunity and I'm really looking forward to going there, but there's still a lot left to do in high school and I'm looking forward to being a senior and having another year with my teammates and coaches," she said.

Salvaggio has impressed her coach, Rob Robitaille, with more than just her determination and work ethic in the pool. Robitaille sees a whole body of work that Salvaggio has already accomplished and has another year to improve upon.

"Look at her accomplishments this year in high school sports," he said. "She played a role with the girls volleyball state championship, then comes immediately off of that to playing a large role in the 2014-2015 Swimming and Diving District 11 championship and an undefeated season, and then took gold in both individual events at states. So in a matter of seven months, she's achieved one team, and two individual golds.

"The iceberg analogy really fits here. The amount of work that Siena has to put in, and the schedule she has to maintain in order to not only be one of the best athletes in the region, but also be as academically talented as she is, is really remarkable. She's a great athlete, and like all of the kids I coach, I'm just happy that they let me be a part of their journey."

Salvaggio also swam on the 200- and 400-yard freestyle relay teams at states, finishing 12th in the 400 and 14th in the 200. Salvaggio's performance in her two individual and two relay events helped the Parkland girls team to a fifth-place finish at states.