Friday was a productive day for Thomas Malloy and Lancaster Catholic at the District Three Class AA Swimming Championships.
"Taking on the juggernaut is difficult."
Those words from Lancaster Catholic coach Matt DePietro described both the effort to stay close to the Hershey swimmers in the pool, and for the Crusaders to handle the added pressure of competing in the District Three Swimming Championships.
Suffice to say, Catholic is doing both rather well.
While Hershey all but locked up the team title with 336 points (including last week's diving results) after the first day of Class AA competition at Cumberland Valley High School, the Crusaders are tied for second with Muhlenberg with 143.
"Hershey's a powerhouse, a machine," said LC senior John Hughes. "There's almost no stopping them."
Or, as Catholic senior Thomas Malloy described the front-running Trojans: "Oh my god, they're unreal. There's not much you can do there."
Where the Crusaders can do well is in dropping times, placing as high as possible and trying to move as many kids as they can into the PIAA Championship Meet March 17-20. The top two finishers in each event automatically earn state berths, while the rest of the PIAA field is based on times from all of the other district meets.
Hughes and Malloy led that effort, with Malloy's third-place finish in the 100-yard butterfly (53.43) the top individual performance among L-L League swimmers. Hughes (22.37) and teammate Stuart Cubbison (22.39) took fifth and sixth, respectively, in the 50 freestyle, while the Crusaders' Jacob Robinson (2:00.14) was fifth in the 200 individual medley.
Where the Crusaders really excelled, though, was in their relays. Catholic's foursome of Robinson (backstroke), Hughes (breaststroke), Malloy (butterfly) and Everett Albert (freestyle) claimed the 200 medley relay silver in a school-record time of 1:38.79. Hershey won the race in a district-record time of 1:32.22, shattering the mark set by York Suburban (1:37.24) in 2008.
Catholic also grabbed second place in the 200 free relay, as Hughes, Cubbison and Malloy were joined by Adam Mathias to take down another school record in 1:28.84. Hershey also won that relay in 1:27.27.
"It was just like last year," DePietro said before herding his kids back to Lancaster. "Great things are happening."
A very good thing happened for Catholic's Elizabeth Davis, who grabbed fourth in the 100 butterfly in 59.68, and for Northern Lebanon's Brooke Gehenio, who was fourth in the 200 IM in 2:15.82.
The Lampeter-Strasburg quartet of Emily Anderson (back), Taylor Grenier (breast), Kylie Turner (fly) and Taylor Wimer (free) placed seventh in the 200 medley relay in a school-record time of 1:57.78. The foursome then beat another L-S standard with a fifth-place finish in the 200 free relay in 1:44.47. Wimer also broke her own school record of 26.06 in the 50 free, which Anderson had tied in the open 50 race, with her leadoff leg in that relay.
Annville-Cleona also claimed a pair of medals as Travis Bohn (2:00.83) was sixth and Austin Bohn (2:01.46) eighth in the 200 IM. Hershey swept the top four spots, including David Nolan's meet-record gold in 1:49.64, which topped his own mark of 1:50.33 set last year.
Hershey's Sean Grier (49.57) broke the 100 fly record held by York Suburban's Kevin Marstellar (50.41, 2009), and Muhlenberg (1:48.34) took down the girls' 200 medley relay record of 1:49.77 set by Hershey in 2006.