When the team standings came out after the first day of competition at the PIAA Swimming and Diving championships, Emmaus was nowhere to be found.

The Hornets had just one opportunity to gain any points on the opening day since the only event they competed in was the 200-yard medley relay.

The relay team consisted of seniors Georgia Magditch and Izzy Sparaco, junior Veronica Karboski, and sophomore Sophia Harmon.

The foursome posted a time of 1:51.17 in the preliminary round, leaving them 24th in the standings and out of the finals.

When all of the day one competition ended, not only was Emmaus not on the girls team scoreboard, but the Hornets were nowhere to be found on the boys side either.

That night, Emmaus head coach Tim O’Connor met with his team over dinner and talked about how they could turn things around the next day. The talk worked.

Magditch dropped 08.28 seconds off her qualifying time in the 500-yard backstroke, the largest drop of any swimmer in the event. The senior swimmer came in seeded 31st in the event and jumped up to 26th after her swim in the preliminary round.

Later in the day, Emmaus sent their 400-yard freestyle relay team into the pool, and it came away with a time of 3:38.83, putting the team through to the finals in 16th place.

In the finals, Magditch, Karboski, Gloria Klees, and freshman Mabry Krause moved up to 15th in the 400-free relay, putting the Hornets on the scoreboard.

“I was pleased with our team’s resiliency,” said O’Connor. “Truthfully, not much went well for our team on day one. We left and had dinner and simply talked about being better on our last day, and our kids really showed out with some great efforts and team spirit, which made me really proud.

“For a good chunk of them, earning a chance to compete in finals or consolation finals was a great moment.”

One of the bigger moments came in the 400-yard freestyle relay as Emmaus battled for the final spot in the finals.

It appeared they had the spot wrapped up, but Hershey’s final swimmer, Natalie Colarossi, swam the last lap in 51.96 and was closing on Magditch, who also put on a late run and held on to the final qualifying spot as she finished 0.08 seconds ahead of Colarossi and eliminated Hershey from the event.

The push from the 400-relay team picked up the only four points scored by Emmaus but kept the team from being shutout.

The Hornets finished tied for 55th with three other teams in the team standings. North Allegheny High School won the girls’ team trophy with 211 points and among local teams Parkland (92 points) finished seventh and Freedom (12) tied for 40th.