After a one-year absence as district champions, the Lady Trojans have now captured back-to-back district team titles at the District 11 swimming and diving championships. The team captured three individual gold medals and swept the three relay events, setting their team up for success at states which will be held at Cumberland Valley High School on March 20.

Kayla Johnson was the big winner on the day, capturing gold in the 50 and 100-yard freestyle events and then putting two more gold medals around her neck as part of relay teams that won gold in the 200 and 500-yard freestyle. Her success led her to be named the winner of the Dennis A. McGinley Award as the meet’s top swimmer.

Her most impressive swim of the day came in the 50-yard freestyle, where she missed resetting the district record by just .27 seconds. The record is currently held by Parkland graduate and former Penn State swimmer Siena Salvaggio, who set the mark at 23.17 seconds in 2016.

“I thought coming in that I had a shot at the record and I’m thinking that definitely next year I’ll be able to get it,” said Johnson. She is also looking forward to a good showing at states after dropping her district time in the 100 freestyle by nearly a full second last year. She is hoping for another drop in time this year. “I did really well last year, so I’m looking forward to dropping more time on this trip to states.”

Olivia Stevenson won gold early in the meet when she won the 200-yard freestyle before grabbing a second gold medal in the 500-yard freestyle. While her win in the 200 was by just under a half of a second, she seemingly coasted to victory in the 500, posting a time of 5:08.16, more than five seconds ahead of second-place finisher Olivia Szerencsits of Northampton. In the final event of the meet, Stephenson joined with Johnson, Claire Weaver and Sophia Cerimele, winning the 400-yard freestyle.

“It was a lot of pressure since you had to win gold to advance to states this year,” said Stevenson. “I just missed states the last two years, so I was up for a challenge, I guess.”

In other seasons, the top two finishers went to states with others also qualifying based on their times compared to other swimmers across the state. To reduce the number of swimmers qualifying for states as part of the COVID precautions put in place by the PIAA, only gold medal winners will be invited to compete at the state level this season.

Madison Tewksbury also went home with three gold medals after winning individual gold in the 100-yard breaststroke and adding two more medals in the 200-yard medley relay and the 200-yard freestyle relay.

In individual events, Tewksbury was matched up with Emmaus’ Lauren Sharp. The two swimmers are on rival teams but are good friends. Tewksbury bested Sharp in the breaststroke, while Sharp touched the wall first in the IM.

“It was like this last year and just the same this year,” said Tewksbury. “We said ‘good luck’ to each other and then congratulated each other. It’s fun competing against her and it’s nice that we both get to go to states.”

The relay teams came out on top in two close battles with Emmaus in the medley relay and the 200 freestyle relay. The meet opened with the team of Tewksbury, Cerimele, Simone Lin and Devon Corvaia besting their rivals by just .09 seconds before later seeing Johnson, Tewksbury, Corvaia and Claire Weaver win the 200 freestyle by an even closer margin of just .07 seconds, also against Emmaus. Johnson, Weaver, Stevenson and Cerimele had an easier time in the 400 freestyle relay, beating a team from Southern Lehigh by .52 seconds to close out the meet with another gold.

The East Penn Conference ran all its meets virtually this season, so it was the first opportunity for Parkland swimmers to have competitors in the lanes next to them. While some swimmers said they didn’t see where it made a difference, most acknowledged that having competitors made a definite impact on their performances.

“It was a weird year to battle through,” said Stevenson of the COVID-impacted season. “It was more competitive, and really exciting to see how other teams are doing. I definitely wouldn’t have gone as fast in my races if I didn’t have people around me.”

Parkland won the girls team championship with a score of 553, easily besting second-place Emmaus, which finished with a team score of 408. Southern Lehigh, Liberty and Easton rounded out the top five in the standings.