North Penn girls swim to fourth straight District 1-AAA crown
PHILADELPHIA >> North Penn’s senior captains have grown up winning district championships.
“It’s really awesome to do it four years in a row,” said Erin O’Neill. “It’s a really cool thing to have with all the seniors and every girl on the team.
“Our divers put us in a really good spot coming in and we were really excited about that because we knew we had a lot of potential to win again.”
With a whopping 343 points, North Penn swam to its fourth straight District One Class AAA title Saturday with an overwhelming performance at La Salle University’s Kirk Pool.
With points in every event and contributions from many, the Lady Knights overcame record-setting efforts by rival Pennridge (196.5) to keep the crown in place.
“It’s pretty awesome. The coolest thing to me is that was our fourth win in a row, so my awesome senior leaders won a district title all four years they were in high school,” coach Matt Weiser said. “To me and the entire coaching staff, all we’ve ever tried to stress is ‘team.’
“And when you score as many points as we did in this meet and you see how much depth we’ve had, that’s what it comes down to is ‘team.’”
North Penn built a big lead Friday and added to it Saturday. The Lady Knights got a fourth-place finish in the 100 free from Kailyn Evans to start things off on Day Two then saw Heather Hartmann go up to the medal stand for a seventh-place finish in the 500 free.
Megan Zartman raced to a bronze in the 100 back and then O’Neill battled to seventh in the 100 breast. The Lady Knights’ 400 free relay foursome raced to silver-medal honors, clocking a 3:26.44.
The trophy case is full, and so is the bus load to states.
“My four senior captains — Leah Brown, Aimee Baur and Erin O’Neill on the swimming side and Marie (Yacopino) does it on the diving end — 100 percent led us to the team title this year,” Weiser said. “I don’t know what else you would want out of four senior girls than what those four bring every single day to North Penn.”
The Rams finished things off Saturday with a district record in the 400 free relay, as the foursome of Hannah Zurmuhl, Anna Beno, Brittany Weiss and Morgan Scott broke the record they set last year, touching in 3:24.89.
Scott won four district golds, touching first in the 100 free on Saturday, with Brittany Weiss taking top honors in the 100 back.
In Classs AA, Gwynedd-Mercy Academy (338) earned runner-up honors behind first-place Villa Maria (567.5), led by Hannah Blaser’s win in the 100 free, Annie O’Dare’s gold in the 100 breast, and the 400 free relay team of Blaser,
O’Dare, Stephanie Szekely and Allie Szekely climaxed the afternoon with a meet-record swim of 3:27.39.
Earlier in the day, the Upper Dublin boys surged to the team title in Class AAA, led by Michael Jensen’s four district records — two individuals and two relay splits — along with gold-medal performances by Ogden Leyens and Wyatt Amdor.
North Penn earned runner-up honors, keyed by Aiden Daly’s fourth-place finish in the 500 free as well as fifth-place medals by Corey Smith (100 back), Harrison Friel (100 breast) and the 400 free relay.
The Lower Moreland boys defended their title in Class AA, ahead of second-place Upper Moreland.
