The Northampton High School varsity swimming and diving team placed 4th overall for the District XI PIAA Championship meet held on Feb. 28 and March 1 at Parkland High School. Swimmers Toni Bubier, Logan Saylor, Henry Schoenenberger, Josiah Hippert, and Tobias Scott all made district championship qualifying times.

“I was not surprised,” commented Northampton Head Coach Cullen Mentzell, “but I was pleased [that] we had a good number of swimmers make district qualifying times.”

An additional 10 Northampton swimmers advanced to the district championship meet after achieving consideration times during the regular season. Divers Alex and Andy Szeplaki and Bella Kish also qualified for diving district championships which were held on Feb. 22.

The team enjoyed some good swims, with the lone qualifier for the women’s team, Toni Bubier, placing 6th overall in the girls’ 500-yard freestyle event. Bubier’s performance in this event moved her into Northampton’s top-10 all-time best times list. Bubier also placed 13th in the girls’ 200-yard freestyle event.

Northampton’s Josiah Hippert placed seventh overall in the boys’ 100-yard freestyle event and 9th overall in the boys’ 50-yard freestyle. Sophomore Logan Saylor and freshman Henry Schoenenberger moved into the Northampton record books as they achieved Northampton’s top-10 all-time best list in the 500-yard freestyle event. Schoenenberger placed ninth overall in the event at districts with Saylor close behind in 10th place. Saylor also achieved a Northampton top-10 time in the 100-yard butterfly event, an event in which he placed 10th overall in districts. Schoenenberger placed 11th in the boys’ 200-yard freestyle event. Sophomore Tobias Scott finished in 12th place in both the boys’ 200-yard individual medley and the boys’ 100-yard butterfly events.

“I love seeing kids get in the top ten or get a school record,” commented Mentzell. “It’s fun to change the record books and hopefully more swimmers get in there next season.”

In other swims, senior Ethan Brobst placed 15th overall in the boys’ 200-yard individual medley. Nick Isaac achieved a 13th-place finish in the boys’ 200-yard freestyle and a fifteenth-place finish in the boys’ 500-yard freestyle event. Senior Aiden Kuntz placed 23rd in the boys’ 50-yard freestyle event, Nate Scheirer finished 11th in the boys’ 200-yard individual medley and 15th in the boys’ 100-yard breaststroke, and freshman Brody Warner placed 11th overall in the boys’ 100-yard backstroke and 16th in the boys 200-yard individual medley.

Senior Ava Keenan grabbed a 15th-place finish in the girls’ 500-yard freestyle, and senior Olivia Kuhns placed 11th in the girls’ 50-yard free and 15th in the girls’ 200-yard freestyle events. Gabriella Oswald was 21st in the girls’ 50-yard freestyle, with junior Sophia Pina close behind in 23rd place. Freshman Amelia Sommons placed 16th in both the girls’ 100-yard butterfly and 100-yard backstroke events.

One of the most exciting races of the meet occurred in the final event of the district championship weekend, the boys’ 400-yard freestyle relay, when the team of Hippert, Isaac, Scott, and Saylor dropped over 10 seconds from their entry time to clinch a fourth place victory and secure their spot on the podium. Down to the wire, this race had the relay teams for Northampton, Easton, and Nazareth battling for third and fourth with Northampton besting the Nazareth team and being just edged out of 3rd place by the Easton relay team.

In other relay events, the team of Hippert, Scheirer, Scott, and Saylor placed 5th overall in the boys’ 200-yard medley relay, and the team of Scheier, Schoenenberger, Brobst, and Isaac grabbed a 7th place finish in the boys’ 200-yard freestyle relay. The girls’ 200-yard freestyle relay team of Kuhns, Oswald, Pina, and Bubier placed ninth overall. Bubier and Kuhns were joined by teammates Sommons and Keenan for an eighth-place finish in the girls 400-yard freestyle relay.

Looking back, Mentzell views this season-end as bittersweet.

“This will be a tough senior class to say good-bye to,” says Mentzell.

He went on to cite graduating senior Ethan Brobst for the example he has set for the younger swimmers.

“I give him a lot of credit for building up our work ethic as a team,” Mentzell said.

Mentzell also commended Andy and Alex Szeplaki and Bella Kish for setting a new standard for the Northampton divers, swimmers Toni Bubier, Olivia Kuhns, and Ava Keenan for jumping into the team with no competitive swimming experience and all becoming huge contributors, and Gabi Oswald, who Mentzell mentioned, “deserves a lot of credit for recruiting new girls to the team and has been a solid contributor.”

Mentzell quipped that the work continues as he considered the new team that will take the blocks next year. “Each year brings different challenges and every team is different. It’s fun to figure out how to get the kids to swim fast and I told the returning swimmers that in no way am I satisfied. We have a lot of work to do.”

That ‘work’ starts in just over 5 short months as the team will be back in the pool just after the start of the new school year and the Northampton swimming and diving legacy will continue.