Speechless. Breathless. Stunned.

You know what, you can use almost any adjective that comes to mind, and you'd still come up short of fully explaining the phenomenon that is Warwick freshman Emily Cameron.

Her times recorded during this, her first campaign of her scholastic swimming career, would have earned her a medal in every event at this past weekend's District Three Swimming Championships.

In many cases, her times would have earned her gold medals.

She did win two of those, eclipsing former Wilson standout Kristy Kowal's record in the 200-yard individual medley in 2:01.67 Friday, then swimming away from the competition for her victory in 1:03.02 in Saturday's 100 breaststroke.

Then, she joined her teammates in the 400 freestyle relay, an event which Warwick had little chance of placing among the top-8.

"You want to end the meet on a high note," Cameron said following that final event. "That's kind of what I was looking to do. Actually, that's what I went after. You always want to finish with a good performance."

Her performance wasn't just good, it was outstanding. Cameron covered those final 100 yards in 49.75 seconds.

That would have easily won both the girls' Class AAA (51.07) and Class AA (52.22) open 100 races and placed her 17th among the Class AAA boys.

Even more impressive, Cameron would have medaled in the boys' Class AA race, taking eighth place.

"I'm just having fun," Cameron said prior to leaving the Cumberland Valley school swimming complex for a team dinner, "and when I have fun I seem to do extremely well."

That was an extreme understatement.

One team's loss is another's gain: Rob Iosue grew up competing for the Woodridge Swim Team in the Lancaster Summer League. He was, however, strictly a summer-only swimmer.

"Actually, I used to play basketball," said Iosue, who's built like a linebacker or tight end. "Then, I hurt my ankle and decided on this (winter swimming)."

The Barons may have lost a strong presence on the hardwoods, but they gained a greater presence in the water. Not since the likes of the Engle family of tremendous swimmers, has Central had a sprinter as fast as Iosue, said MC coach Sylvia Kroeck.

Iosue won the 50 freestyle with a 21.30 Friday, earning his first trip to the March 17-18 state meet. So Saturday, with expectations not too great in the 100 (he was seeded first in the 50 but fifth in the 100), he decided a change in strategy may give him a boost.

"I'm already there," he said of getting to states in the 50, "so I figured I had nothing to lose. I just went after it (in the 100).

"If I only swam one thing at states, that would have been fine, because I was really concentrating on the 50. Then I thought if I could go to states in another event, why not.

"There was a little more risk with what I did, but it all worked out," he said of going almost all-out on the first 50, before holding off the rest of the field to grab second in 46.79 behind only Cumberland Valley's Steve Gasparini (46.72) and in front of L-L League rival Dain Bomberger (46.86).

Automatic berths: Perhaps it's time to change the format for awarding automatic berths to the state meet. Currently, only the top two swimmers in Class AA are guaranteed entry into the PIAA Championship Meet. When you look at the number of District Three kids who end up getting in with what the state calls the 'time qualifier' berths, you could just as easily expand that number to three, just like in Class AAA.

Wakeup call: It was interesting to hear the stories from the Cumberland Valley staff of how early some fans arrive to get in line for seats at districts. CV athletic director Dave Bitting said Friday that his staff rented porta-potties this year because fans arrived at the school at 4 a.m. for last year's final day of competition. The Class AA meet doesn't even begin until 10 a.m., while Class AAA gets under way at 2:30 p.m. That's a long time to wait in line.

On call: The psych sheets for states came out on Sunday, listing the automatic qualifiers and the 'time qualifiers' but did not put the two categories together. Thus, official seeds aren't yet available. The PIAA will seed the meet shortly.