By Alex Frazier
At this year’s District One Swimming Championships, North Penn finished second for the boys, and in an exciting finale, Council Rock North upended defending champion Souderton to take the girls’ title.
Boys
At one point not so long ago, North Penn was the scourge of District One. Certainly the Knights haven’t fallen far. Second place is still quite an accomplishment.
This is the third year North Penn has had to take a back seat to another team. Three years ago it was Upper Dublin; last year, West Chester Henderson; and this year, Boyertown, which won its first-ever title, outpointing the Knights 236-214.
“We’ve been watching Boyertown for the past three years creep up,” said North Penn coach Brian Daly. “They were certainly on our radar as one of the teams to beat.
“In order for us to beat Boyertown, even with the very nice diving lead that all four of our divers contributed to, we had to have a great meet. We had a good meet. We had some nice drops, just not the big drops we were hoping for.”
Central Bucks East and Upper Dublin were also potential spoilers. The Patriots finished fourth behind Henderson (166.5 points) and Upper Dublin was fifth (162).
The C.B. East quartet of Kerry Thompson, Kevin Magee, Mark Dilemmo and Riley Weber won the 200 freestyle relay in 1:27.52. That relay is seeded sixth for states.
“C.B. East is very talented,” said Daly. “I wasn’t surprised because we swam them as one of our last dual meets. They easily handled two out of the three relays and five individual events.”
Upper Dublin began the meet by winning the 200 medley relay. Dave Derr, Alex Stine, Brian Wall and Ashton Leyens touched the wall in 1:35.32. They are seeded fifth at states.
North Penn took second without a single winner. As usual the Knights were very deep. They had 21 qualify for districts as opposed to Boyertown’s seven.
“We don’t have any superstars,” said Daly, “but we have a lot of dedicated, committed kids who are interested in being the next North Penn team to bring home a title.”
Daly said that the first day of competition hurt his team.
“Nerves got the best of some of our kids,” he said. “The second day was a much better day.”
Sean McDonald, for example, didn’t have a good 200 freestyle swim on the first day but came back the second to qualify for states in the 500. He is seeded 19th with a time of 4:46.48.
“He was on fire,” said Daly. “Once they settled into the meet and started having some fun, it was a much better situation for us all around.”
Another factor on the second day was the motivational swim of Jack Else in the 500.
“He refused to let the kid from Boyertown beat him,” said Daly. “That seemed to get the team going when Jack had a real big time drop in the 500 and scored some of those big points we were looking for.”
Else is seeded eighth in the 500 at states with a time of 4:39.82. He is also seeded 13th in the 200 free (1:44.70).
Tomas Gimenez followed Else’s example in the 500 with a fifth-place finish in the 100 breaststroke. His time of 1:00.42 earned him a 19th seed at states.
In all, the Knights will take eight swimmers and two divers to the state meet.
“We got just about everybody out of the district into the state meet that we were hoping for,” said Daly. “We have some nice opportunity to improve up at Bucknell.”
Other SOL state qualifiers (by event)
200 freestyle— Alex Chialastri (Plymouth Whitemarsh, 6th, 1:42.60), Alan Staerk (Abington, 11th, 1:44.62), Connor Forlini (Wm. Tennent, 24th, 1:46.60), Peter Kolokithias (North Penn, 26th, 1:46.66)
200 individual medley – Robert Phiambolis (Pennridge, 18th, 1:57.91), Ian Khyat (C.B. South, 21st, 1:58.29), Scott McHenry (Pennsbury, 22nd, 1:58.49)
50 freestyle – Riley Weber (C.B. East, 14th, 21.78), Alex Stine (Upper Dublin, 28th, 22.11)
Diving – T.J. Schenkel (C.R. South, 5, 458.20), Ozzie Moyer (Souderton, 6th, 452.15), Frankie Murray (North Penn, 7th, 448.30), John Brice (C.B. East, 8th, 445.95), Michael Kohler (North Penn, 15th, 414.30), Tyler Wenzel (Souderton, 16th, 409.95)
100 butterfly – Dave Derr (Upper Dublin, 6th, 50.62), Mark Dilemmo (C.B. East, 18th, 52.18), Kevin Magee (C.B. East, 21st, 52.54), Eric Schaffling (Wm. Tennent, 23rd, 52.62), Matt Chrzanowski (Pennsbury, 24th, 52.68), Brian Wall (Upper Dublin, 26th, 52.73), Kyle Lukens (Plymouth Whitemarsh, 27th, 52.76)
100 freestyle – Riley Weber (C.B. East, 11th, 47.08), Mike Shaeffer (Hatboro-Horsham, 14th, 47.14), Alan Staerk (Abington, 23rd, 47.80), Matt Chrzanowski (Pennsbury, 19th, 47.82)
500 freestyle – Alex Naglich (Pennsbury, 9th, 4:39.99), Connor Forlini (Wm. Tennent, 11th, 4:42.57)
200 freestyle relay – Pennsbury (13th, 1:28.05)
100 backstroke – Dave Derr (Upper Dublin, 5th, 51.35), Alex Chialastri (Plymouth Whitemarsh, 12th, 52.22), Tim Ware (C.B. South, 18th, 53.43), Stephen Thomas (Wm. Tennent, 26th, 54.11)
100 breaststroke – Ilan Khyat (C.B. South, 21st, 1:00.59), Kerry Thompson (C.B. East, 1:00.67), Sean Corcoran (Souderton, 1:00.82), Robert Phiambolis (Pennridge, 29th, 1:01.23
400 freestyle relay – Upper Dublin (6th, 3:09.18), North Penn (12th, 3:12.60), Pennsbury (17th, 3:14.15), Hatboro-Horsham (20th, 3:15.32)
Girls
It all came down to the 400 freestyle relay for the girls.
Council Rock North and Souderton were tied at 162 points apiece.
“I said (to the girls), we just have to finish place-wise ahead of Souderton,” said North coach Ted Schueller. “If we finish ahead of them we win; if they finish (ahead of us) they win.”
Kate Dillione, Bizzy Millen, Maggie Dillione and Madison Meyer didn’t disappoint, as they touched the wall nearly two seconds ahead of the Big Red.
Their time of 3:31.73 broke their own school record by five seconds, and it was good enough to get them seeded fourth at states.
In addition, all four had their fastest splits. Kate Dillione broke the school record in the 100, starting off the relay.
“They missed the district record by five-tenths,” said Schueller. “Another goal of theirs was to make automatic High School All-American, which they did by two and a half seconds. They did a lot in that relay.”
The Indians had several key head-to-heads with Souderton. Meyer and the Big Red’s Mariel Kush went at it in the 500 freestyle, with Meyer touching just two-hundredths of a second in front of Kush in 5:04.04, good for a ninth seed at states.
Kate Dillione and Kush competed against each other in the 100 butterfly with Dillione taking second (57.16) and Kush placing fourth (58.26). Dillione is seeded fifth at states, while Kush is 18th.
Souderton got the upper hand in the 200 freestyle relay with Missy Doll, Alyssa Santangelo, Ann Fadden and Chloe Thomas finishing first in 1:37.77, which placed them third for states. North finished third and is seeded fifth at Bucknell.
Council Rock South’s Lauren Ahrens won the 200 individual medley in a time of 2:07.38 and is seeded eighth for states.
Others SOL state qualifiers (by event)
200 medley relay – Souderton (20th, 1:50.05)
200 freestyle – Melissa Ross (16th, 1:55.71), Maggie Dillione (C.R. North, 26th, 1:57.20
200 individual medley – Kate Dillione (C.R. North, 12th, 2:08.56)
50 freestyle – Sam Deana (North Penn, 24.70), Ali Roth (C.B. West, 29th, 24.76
Diving – Emily Howard (Pennsbury, 6th, 417.40), Lindsay Schmidt (C.B. South, 9th, 410.45), Rachel Saunders (C.B. West, 16th, 374.85), Shauna Hastings (North Penn, 17th, 372.75)
100 butterfly –Ian Ikeda (North Penn, 10th, 57.77), Erin Regan (Upper Dublin, 19th, 58.27), Bizzy Millen (C.R. North, 24th, 58.57)
100 freestyle – Missy Doll (Souderton, 7th, 52.43), Ali Roth (C.B. West, 24th, 53.59
500 freestyle – Bizzy Millen (C.R. North, 17th, 5:07.57, Kellie Roedig (Abington, 5:08.44)
200 freestyle relay – Upper Dublin (10th, 1:38.54)
100 backstroke – Melanie Busch (Wm. Tennent, 10th, 57.72), Samantha Park (C.R. North, 28th, 59.56
100 breaststroke – Kathryn Viola (C.B. East, 22nd, 1:07.43
400 freestyle relay – Souderton (8th, 3:34.77), North Penn (11th, 3:35.06), Upper Dublin (14th, 3:36.10)
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