Both the Emmaus boys and girls came into their meet with Liberty last week with perfect 7-0 records, while Liberty’s boys were also 7-0 and the girls stood at 6-1, with just a loss to Parkland in the way of their perfect season. With the Parkland girls still undefeated and the boys with just one loss, the Hornets knew that both Liberty and Parkland were in the way of their hunt for an Eastern Pennsylvania Conference title and a perfect season to go with it.

Emmaus showed that it was up to the challenge and downed the Hurricanes 104-82 in girls swimming and diving and 106-80 on the boys side. The win makes the looming showdown with Parkland later this month even more of an event, if that’s possible.

It wasn’t just the swimmers who were excited with the meet against Liberty, a large contingent of Emmaus fans made the trip to Bethlehem and coach Tim O’Connor showed even more emotion on deck than he is used to showing.

“You saw a Coach O today that was like the guy who was helping build state championship programs,” he said. “I was animated and it was just a great day. I was really happy for how our kids swam and the effort; still things to work on, but that’s me though. They [the kids] saw a side of me that was a lot different.”

The effort was evident on both the boys and girls sides of the team. For the boys, Nathan Luey came up huge in the 200 individual medley, when he and Liberty’s Nolan Vanatta were locked in a battle for second behind Emmaus’ Tom Schlechter. Luey made a big push to finish second in the race, gaining key points for the boys team, by finishing .47 seconds ahead of Vanatta.

“I’ve never really had that close of a race before and showing that I have the potential to win like that gives me confidence and shows the rest of the team what I can do,” said Luey. The whole team was pumped and excited for today. That was quite a race and got the adrenaline pumping. I haven’t done my best time since districts last year and I really wanted to get that. I also knew the points would help if I got second and I knew we needed those points, so I just went out and did it.”

In the 200 IM, Schlechter set a new Liberty High School pool record with a time of 2:01.59. Emmaus also set pool records with Pat McAllister’s 47.32 in the 100 free and in the girls 400 free relay when the team of Chelsea Gravereaux, Casey Young, Abby Heilenman and Katie Champagne turned in a 3:40.83.

For the girls, the team was without top diver Jess Hurlburt, who has an injured shoulder. With her out, senior Kayla Apostolico, who competed in diving in a summer league, volunteered to take to the boards in an attempt to add points for her team.

“I offered to do it, because I felt like it was an opportunity, with Jess injured, to help the team,” said Apostolico, who believes the win was exactly what the team needed for a late-season boost. “It’s a great confidence booster. Going into the meet, we knew it was going to be really close, so we really gave it our all, so coming out with a win is really exciting.”

Apostolico finished third in the girls diving, adding three points for her team.

“This senior leadership has been really good,” said O’Connor. “They’re not stifling. They’re not bossy. They’re trying really hard to be inclusive, but they’re also trying really hard to show the kids that they have to work for what they want. They may not be the fastest on the team, but those swimmers all work really, really hard

“And when a senior like Kayla Apostolico, when she realized last night that Jess Hurlburt wasn’t ready to dive and she says, ‘listen, this means a lot. I’ll dive.’ That’s something. For her to do that, just epitomizes the senior class.”

The team will salute their seniors Thursday afternoon at 4:00 when they host Nazareth at the high school.