Win or lose, Freedom’s swim team has a new post-meet tradition that celebrates the success of two Patriots who excelled in the pool.

“The captains (Laney Stewart, Lily Campbell, Ben Rader, and Joseph Volkert) took it upon themselves to create a new tradition for the team this year,” said Freedom coach JJ Apostolico. “They nominated, after the Dieruff meet, who they thought had a good meet, so they recognized Lily Moore and Juan Puentes, and then those two picked the next people at the next meet to give them their chance to shine. Ideally, over the course of the year, everybody should have an opportunity to get it. It’s a way for us to be supporting each other, and it was a really good idea.”

Collin Whiting and Autumn Baker were honored by being splashed by their Patriot teammates after last week’s meet against Southern Lehigh, won by the Spartans, 128-57 (girls) and 111-64 (boys).

In girls events, Lily Campbell won the 100 butterfly with a time of 1:05.64, and Laney Stewart took first place in the 100 breaststroke with a time of 1:19.69.

“My time was pretty good, especially considering how early in the season it is,” said Campbell. “That’s one of the strategies for sprint races. You want to try to pull through and get faster in the third and fourth lap rather than be a very front heavy race because a lot of people swim their races where their first two laps are very fast and they kind of slow down in the third and fourth lap. I felt like I was holding a good pace the whole time.”

In boys events, Gabriel Maldonado took first place in the 200 freestyle with a time of 2:13.89, and Asa Lawser placed first in the 100 backstroke with a time of 1:04.49.

“The first wall is the most important off the start,” Lawser said. “That’s where you’re fastest in the race, so that’s where I try to get the most kicks in. I feel like I do better if I have someone in my sights, but then that leads me to leave my head up, but the thing about backstroke is that you can see with the splash of their kick, but it’s a bad habit to look at the other swimmers. Your job is to stare at the ceiling and stare at the flags. It wasn’t my best time, but it’s where I want to be in the middle of December at this point in the season.”

Freedom’s Hayden Taylor won the girls diving event with a score of 303.75, and Cody Smith won the boys diving event with a score of 305.95.

“I thought we had a lot of really good swims overall, doing a really good job of embracing our mindset of process over results, especially this early in the season,” said Apostolico. “We’re trying new things in the water, applying new techniques, so they’re doing a good job of understanding they’re not going to be doing best times right now, but we’re raising their ceiling to hopefully be able to go faster at the end of the year.”