Parkland teammates Kayla Johnson and Claire Weaver had a big weekend at the District 11 swimming championships. Swimming in their home pool, both senior swimmers picked up four gold medals, with their final one coming in the last event of the weekend, the 400-yard freestyle relay where they were teamed with junior Ashley Settle and sophomore Sophia Cerimele.

In addition to the individual highs, the team won its third straight district championship.

In addition to the gold in the 400, Weaver and Johnson collected some bling as part of the 200-yard freestyle relay team, when sophomores Cerimele and Madison Roseman joined them. Their win in the 400 came by a wide margin as they finished with a time of 1:38.29 and finished a little more than two seconds ahead of a team from Pocono Mountain East.

Johnson’s individual gold medals came in the 50- and 100-yard freestyle meets. In the 50, Johnson captured not just the gold medal, but reached a milestone she had set as a goal coming into the season when she bested the district record time of former Parkland and Penn State University swimmer Sienna Salvaggio, who held the record time of 23.17 since 2016. Johnson beat that mark with a time of 22.95 on Friday.

While she fell just short of Salvaggio’s district record time of 49.92 in the 100, Johnson still captured gold with a time of 50.14 seconds.

“I used that as a goal all season long and I felt that I could get there. I worked really hard to get to that level and it feels amazing,” said Johnson of her time in the 50, which is not just a district record, but a Parkland High School pool record as well. “I am really looking forward to states and competing at that level again.”

The 50 freestyle at states will be an interesting one to watch as Johnson will go up against Downingtown East High School’s Alexa Fulton, who late last month swam a PIAA record time in the event with a 22.65 at the District 1 championships.

In addition to the four gold medals, Johnson left Parkland on Saturday with even more hardware when she was named the East Penn Conference Swimmer of the Year for her performance during the regular season and then took the Dennis A. McGinley Award as the swimmer of the meet at districts.

“I could not imagine how this would feel,” said Johnson. “My teammates have always pushed me and helped me to get better and they have always been there for me, even today, they came up big for me.”

In the 400-freestyle relay, Johnson and Weaver were swimming against an Emmaus team that had senior Chloe Vlaeminck swimming the anchor leg. Vlaeminck needed her team to win the event to give her four gold medals for the weekend, but Parkland was able to get the win while Emmaus finished third to take bronze medals.

Weaver started collecting gold early when in just the second girls’ event of the day on Friday she won the 200-yard freestyle with a time of 1:53.96, finishing :01.63 seconds ahead of Southern Lehigh’s Garrity Ford. The pair came in ranked one and two in the event with Weaver having a qualifying time just .09 seconds better than that of Ford.

On day two, Weaver took gold in the 500-yard freestyle when she edged out Northampton’s Olivia Szerencsits by .10 seconds. Like in the 200, Weaver was the favorite to win, and she did so by shaving nearly 12 seconds off her qualifying time with a time of 5:04.00.

“It feels fantastic,” said Weaver. “I knew coming in that I had a good shot in both, but anything can happen and there are a lot of good swimmers here, so you can never take anything for granted.”

Parkland trailed Easton and then Emmaus in the early team standings of districts. Johnson’s win in the 100-freestyle pushed the Lady Trojans ahead of Emmaus by a score of 266-249. By the end of Saturday, Parkland had finished with a 447-386 advantage over the rival Hornets. Southern Lehigh placed third with 316 points and Nazareth was fourth with 227.

The following are results from the District 11 Class 3A girls Swimming and Diving Championships, including the top five finishers in each event along with all Parkland finishers.

Team Scores

1. Parkland 447, 2. Emmaus 386, 3. Southern Lehigh 316, 4. Nazareth 227, 5. Stroudsburg 144, 6. Pocono Mt. East 142, 7. Liberty 139, 8. Easton 128, 9. Northampton 109, 10. Freedom 71, 11. East Stroudsburg So. 48, 12. Allen 40, 13. Whitehall 36, 14. Pocono Mt. West 35, 15. Dieruff 10.

200 Medley relay: 1. Emmaus (Isabella Sparaco, Chloe Vlaeminck, Mya Puentes, Hailey Reinhard) 1:47.3, 2. Southern Lehigh 1:47.71, 3. Nazareth 1:50.64, 4. Parkland (Isabel Sheridan, Madison Roseman, Hillary Roth, Natasha Goldman) 1:54.8, 5. Liberty 1:55.8.

200 Freestyle: 1. Claire Weaver (Parkland) 1:53.96, 2. Garrity Ford (So. Lehigh) 1:55.96, 3. Madison Camden (So. Lehigh) 1:56.78, 4. Olivia Szerencsits (Northampton) 1:57.8, 5. Morgan Gould (Emmaus) 1:59.38, 7. Jullianne Zaffiro )Parkland) 2:01.3, 10. Sydney Platt (Parkland) 2:06.34.

200 Individual medley: 1. Chloe Vlaeminck (Emmaus) 2:07.94, 2. Marianne Tassinari (East Stroudsburg So.) 2:14.05, 3. Sophia Cerimele (Parkland) 2:14.11, 4. Hailey Reinhard (Emmaus) 2:18.55, 5. Isabel Sheridan (Parkland) 2:20.25, 7. Natasha Goldman (Parkland) 2:20.7.

50 Freestyle: 1. Kayla Johnson (Parkland) *22.95, 2. Brianna Wasem (So. Lehigh) 24.19, 3. Mya Puentes (Emmaus) 24.66, 4. Jewel Little (Stroudsburg) 25.07, 5. Alexis Hoyer (So. Lehigh) 25.3, 7, 11. Madison Roseman (Parkland) 25.98.

100 Butterfly: 1. Tori Fenn (Pocono Mt. East) 57.25, 2. Mya Puentes (Emmaus) 57.71, 3. Brooke Sergent (Liberty) 59.35, 4. Jillian Kingsley (Nazareth) 59.52, 5. Hillary Roth (Parkland) 1:00.3, 15. Mackenzie Platt (Parkland) 1:08.6.

200 Freestyle relay: 1. Parkland (Claire Weaver, Sophia Cerimele, Madison Roseman, Kayla Johnson) 1:38.29, 2. Pocono Mt. East 1:40.47, 3. Nazareth 1:40.49, 4. Emmaus 1:41.28, 5. Southern Lehigh 1:43.32.

100 Freestyle: 1. Kayla Johnson (Parkland) 50.14, 2. Tori Fenn (Pocono Mt. East) 51.74, 3. Jillian Kingsley (Nazareth) 53.85, 4. Brianna Wasem (So. Lehigh) 54.07, 5. Cameron Alvino (Nazareth) 55.64, 6. Ashley Settle (Parkland) 56.18, 7. Madison Roseman (Parkland) 56.27.

500 Freestyle: 1. Claire Weaver (Parkland) 5:04.0, 2. Olivia Szerencsits (Northampton) 5:14.1, 3. Morgan Gould (Emmaus) 5:21.4, 4. Julianne Zaffiro (Parkland) 5:22.1, 5. Sada Fleischaker (Parkland) 5:23.8, 6. Hillary Roth (Parkland) 5:34.23.

100 Backstroke: 1. Garrity Ford (So. Lehigh) 56.52, 2. Madison Camden (So. Lehigh) 57.34, 3. Sophia Cerimele (Parkland) 1:00.5, 4. Christine Sirignano (Emmaus) 1:01.05, 5. Isabella Sparaco (Emmaus) 1:01.07, 14. Isabel Sheridan (Parkland) 1:03.26.

100 Breaststroke: 1. Chloe Vlaeminck (Emmaus) 1:06.87, 2. Sydney Platt (Parkland) 1:10.34, 3. Sada Fleischaker (Parkland) 1:10.57, 4. Julianna Rice (Nazareth) 1:10.62, 5. Natasha Goldman (Parkland) 1:11.01, 6. Ashley Settle (Parkland) 1:11.03.

400 Freestyle relay: 1. Parkland (Claire Weaver, Ashley Settle, Sophia Cerimele, Kayla Johnson) 3:34.22, 2. So. Lehigh 3:34.36, 3. Emmaus 3:40.48, 4. Pocono Mt. East 3:46.11, 5. Stroudsburg 3:53.09.

Diving: 1. Rachel Marcus (Easton) 379.8, 2. Keller Pooley (Liberty) 369.85, 3. Nicole Stofko (Parkland) 336.4, 4. Madison Conrad (Easton) 324.1, 5. Isabella Kish (Northampton) 288.7, 7. Leah Webb (Parkland) 273.3.

*Denotes District 11 record