Emmaus boys to win District 11 for 17th straight year

The District 11 Diving Championships were held Saturday at Emmaus High School to not only recognize the best athletes in the area, but also to qualify divers to the PIAA Championships to be held at Bucknell University in mid-March. was also held.

Of the 3A classification divers, two Freedom Divers will accompany Bucknell, with divers from Parkland and Northampton.

On the men's side, Parkland's Brad Kuntz continued to lead the standings round after round, with some late-round heroics to take the gold medal by just 1.55 points over Freedom's Cody Smith.

On the women's side, Freedom's Hayden Taylor was well on her way to gold, while Northampton's Vera Kish made it through the final round to win the silver medal by just 0.80 points over Parkland's Johanna Cooke. necessitated a big jump.

The top two medalists for both boys and girls qualify for state.

In the 2A competition, Hayley Scheier (Blue Mountain) and Joyce Burian (North Schuylkill) advanced to state by winning gold and silver medals, respectively, for the girls, and Hayden Slasky (Northwestern Lehigh) and Adam Slaski (Northwestern Lehigh) for the boys. Klinger (Pottsville) won. Advanced. Slasky is a student at Northwestern University, but because Northwestern doesn't have a swimming and diving team, he trains at Parkland.

Kuntz was in second place after two of the 11 rounds, then dropped to third place over the next few rounds, but re-emerged into the lead in the fifth round with a one-and-a-half rotation back summersalt pike with a score of 40.25. did. In the next round, teammate Harry Epstein and Northampton's Alex Sheplaki surpassed him, pushing Kuntz back into third place.

“I was a little disappointed, but I knew I was going to make better dives from now on, so I just had to hang around. I was staying close to the top three, so I just had to stay confident,” said the top Kuntz, who took over the position, said: He won the ninth round and then made two strong dives to take home the gold medal.

Smith had to fight his way up to the top rankings, scoring a 40.70 in second place with an inward one-and-a-half somersault tuck in the eighth round, and three in his final three dives. won a big prize. To take silver. Northampton's Alex and Andrew Sheplaki placed third and fourth respectively.

“I knew I had a chance,” said Smith, who is a sophomore and making his first trip to state. “I was hoping to finish at least third, but I was able to hang close enough to the top that I was able to make a late dive and move into second place.”

Taylor ran consistently throughout the tournament, taking second place after the second round, regaining the top spot in the third round and holding on to the gold medal.

“The last three dives, I felt like I had this under control pretty well,” said Taylor, a sophomore like Smith. “I knew that if I made a clean, solid dive from there, I should be able to win the gold medal, or at least make it very difficult for anyone to catch me.”

Kish advanced to the final round in third place, just 3.05 points behind Parkland's Schultz, who earned the silver medal and a berth to states. Kish surpassed Stolz in the final round and moved into second place.

Junior Kish will also be making his first state trip and is looking forward to diving at Bucknell.

“I was hoping it would end with a trip to states because I put in a lot of effort, but there are a lot of good divers out there, so it was close the whole time,” Kish said. “I was third for a lot of rounds, so I had to focus on my last dive to move up the rankings.”

district swimming

On Friday and Saturday, swimmers will be the center of attention for the Parkland High School district. The Emmaus boys are looking to extend their team championship streak to 17 straight, but Parkland has the ability to end this season's EPC Championship winning streak and end the Green Hornets' district championship streak.

For the girls, Parkland has won four straight and 14 of the past 15 district championships.

The four highest-rated swimmers on the girls side are all from Parkland. Sophia Selimel, Sydney Labeau, Kelsey McPeak and Mira Hearn form a formidable foursome for the Trojans. Stroudsburg's Anna Kirby rounded out the top five, followed by Victoria Kutelas (Pocono Mountain East), Gloria Clase (Emmaus), Georgia Magditch (Emmaus), Kayla Spengler (Nazareth) and Mabry Kraus (Emmaus). ) is followed.

Liberty University has two of its top five swimmers competing at districts, with senior Malcolm Collins leading the rankings and David Gabriel coming in fifth. Between them are Aaron Stiner (Whitehall), Logan Shriver (Emauus) and Carter Mui (Pocono Mountain West). In the boys event, Dom Faenza (Parkland), Andersen Borst (Emau), Griffin Messenlehner (Emau), Ian Thomas (Whitehall) and Jake Brunetti (Easton) were the top 10 candidates.

just because you know

Swimmers can enter up to four events, either two individual events and two relay events, or one individual event and three relay events. To qualify for the event, swimmers had to record event-based qualifying times during the dual meet season or at sanctioned invitational events or other events.

Regional gold medal winners automatically qualify for state, which will be held March 13-16 at Bucknell University. Other swimmers may also be selected to compete at state and will be selected based on their finishing time at district compared to finishers from other districts across Pennsylvania.

If you go

First and foremost, get there early. Good seats fill up quickly, and so does the parking lot. There will be four sessions for spectators at the 2A event, with admission allowed from 2pm on Friday and 9:15am on Saturday. Spectators for 3A events will be admitted Friday at 6:15 p.m. and Saturday at 1:45 p.m.

Second, don't wear winter clothes. Aquariums are kept warm to keep swimmers comfortable, so temperatures can get quite high, especially in the seating areas.

Thirdly, yes, there is a concession area, and a pretty good one as well.

Chuck Hixon is a freelance writer.