All good things must come to an end, and such is the case for the seniors on the Parkland swimming and diving teams. The team and its fans saluted the seniors in the final home meet of the regular season last week against Allen.

The senior class has been a part of some successful teams for Parkland during its time in high school, with the girls team winning conference and district titles in each of their three seasons. They look to make it a clean sweep starting this week with the season finale against Emmaus. Both girls teams are undefeated coming into the showdown, with the winner taking the conference title. The boys have just one loss and need a win over undefeated Emmaus to share the conference title.

The success of the senior class is hard to measure against other senior groups that have come through the program, but no other group of seniors in recent memory has swept through conference and district titles.

“It’s hard to judge that,” said coach Rob Robitaille about how the group stacks up to other senior classes. “They continue the tradition of competitive senior girls teams that we’ve had, but it’s so hard to judge between one and another. Swimming in the valley is so different now than what it was even just four or five years ago. It would be unfair to any senior who swam to say one is better than the other. They continue the tradition and they do what they’ve needed to do to make sure the girls have always been competitive.”

Senior Caroline Stang thinks the familiarity that the group has with each other has contributed to its success.

“We all came into this having previous experience with swimming and knowing each other a little bit, but four years seems like such a short time,” said Stang, who wants to major in social work in college, likely with an emphasis on mental health. “It feels long when you’re in the pool everyday practicing with each other and racing each other and it’s great to see the progression.”

Senior night brought out nerves for senior Zach Colangelo, who realizes time is running out to make a choice on a college and a major. Colangelo has narrowed down his list of potential colleges, but is still deciding on a major. Right now, he’s undecided between business, film and political science, because he has a passion for all three. One thing Colangelo does know is that the swimming program will be fine thanks to a strong group of young swimmers coming along behind the seniors.

“They’re great,” said Colangelo of the underclassmen. “You saw tonight, our sophomore [James Connolly] went 5:01 in the 500 freestyle. I’ve never touched that. We’ve got Ian Johnson, another great distance swimmer, Bar Maymon, who is great in breaststroke and that’s important. We’ve got skills in all of the areas.”

While it’s impossible to compare classes, Robitaille does know that the current group of seniors has been an impressive bunch that have done their job in carrying on the tradition of Parkland swimming.

“They’ve been huge for the program and they’ll be a hard set of shoes to fill,” said Robitaille. “For the four years that they’ve been here. Without the group that’s graduating, we don’t do a lot of the cool things that we’ve been able to do over the last couple of years. It’s a good group of talent that’s graduating out and it’s going to be on the underclassmen and the up-and-comers that will be left to fill the void next year.”