Liberty High School swimmers, Evan Smith, Brandon Hlavaty, Jacob Jones, and Robert Negron recently returned from competing at the PIAA State Swimming Championships at Bucknell University.

Julia McCarthy, who also qualified for states, was unable to compete because of illness.

Negron, a freshman, competed in the 50 free and had a preliminary time of 21.81.

Liberty assistant swimming coach Jeff Matyus said, "For a big venue like that, he did well."

Head coach Reik Foust agreed.

"He goes real hard and expects a lot of himself, and he knows his time's coming," said Foust.

Negron also competed in the 200 free relay along with Smith, Hlavaty, and Jones, all seniors.

In question prior to states was who would swim the first leg of the race, Smith or Negron, because there was a school record to be broken. Both swimmers lobbied for the opportunity, but it was Smith who won. The Hurricane senior did, in fact, break that record by .04 seconds.

"By the skin of his teeth," Foust said. "He was still in the water when we yelled, you did it, you did it."

The Hurricanes recorded a time of 1:27.47 in prelims and 1:28.49 in finals in the relay.

"We were absolutely out of gas for finals, but they were all [individually] just about under time. The problem was being on the outside lane. We got behind that wave. Everything peels off from the middle, and we got whacked. We just didn't get through that wave," said Foust.