North Penn’s Yacopino, Boland Bintner look for gold again at District 1 Championships

North Penn’s Marie Yacopino and Ian Boland Bintner will both be looking to repeat their gold-medal efforts of a year ago, as the District One Diving Championships get underway Friday evening at North Penn’s Rick Carroll Natatorium.

The boys event will be held Friday evening starting at 6 p.m. and the girls event will be held Saturday morning, beginning at 9 p.m.

Yacopino and Boland Bintner got their 2016 postseasons off to a tremendous start, each capturing the Suburban One League Continental Conference title earlier this month.

“This is my favorite time of the season — always exciting,” Yacopino said after winning the conference gold, a night in which she also broke her own meet record. “It’s good to know that I’m improving and getting better each day.

“My gainer has been really bad lately so I was working on it a lot (leading up to the conference meet),” the senior said. “It wasn’t as good as I was hoping but it was still better than it’s been. I’m really looking forward to (districts). I still have a lot of work to do, like cleaning up to do with some of my dives, but I’m excited.”

Boland Bintner has also been doing some fine-tuning, especially with his reverse two and a half, which he nailed at the conference championships.

“I just learned it about a month ago and I’ve been doing it at every practice,” he said. “I’m really happy with how that came out. I think that’s the best I’ve ever done it in a meet.”

North Penn will be well represented in the Class AAA event, as Bryce Hoch, Matthew Krise and Evan Meiers join the party on the boys side, with Paige Burrell, Rachael Risher and Callie Smith going for the Lady Knights.

Central Bucks South’s Nash Nickerson should be in the running again on the boys side — he earned silver-medal honors last season, and SOL American Champion Kelly Regan of Upper Dublin should be pushing for the medal stand in the girls event.

It could be a big weekend for Upper Moreland in Class AA, as Shannon Chambers — second as a junior last year to then-senior, teammate Sydney Szopo — will be vying for top honors while UM’s Dan Wilcox will be amongst the favorites on the boys side.