North Penn girls capture PIAA AAA crown, program’s first since 1990
LEWISBURG >> Julie Krail Evans was bouncing around the hotel lobby.
“I was like, ‘calm down, calm down, we still have finals,’” said her daughter, Kailyn, one of the North Penn girls swim team’s most versatile performers.
The anticipation was at high tide.
As the night grew closer, the Lady Knights were closing in on their first State Swim Title since 1990, when Julie was setting records for North Penn.
Now, it was her daughter and the rest of the current NP squad that was sitting atop Class AAA.
“Everybody that did individual swims this morning made it back for night swims,” Kailyn said. “I was blown away, blown away…”
Like 1990 would say, “U Can’t Touch This.” The North Penn girls amassed a whopping 243 points at Bucknell University, clinching the team crown long before they took the celebratory plunge into the Kinney Natatorium pool.
“It’s definitely the best group I’ve ever coached here at North Penn,” said coach Matt Weiser, who was six years old the last time North Penn won a state crown. “They’re really self sufficient, they knew what to do. They came in and handled their business and did the same thing every day at practice.”
The Lady Knights began the day with a spectacular performance by gold medalist diver Marie Yacopino — getting 46 points from a combined four divers in that event — and then got another 12 points in the first swim event of the evening, as Evans won the consolation race and placed ninth overall in the 100-yard freestyle, with teammate Aimee Baur placing 14th.
Heather Hartmann’s 15th-place finish in the 500 free led up to Megan Zartman reaching the medal stand with a fifth-place finish in the 100 back.
Freshman Maureen Boland Bintner grabbed 12th in the 100 breast, with the evening climaxed by a silver-medal finish in the 400 free relay. A foursome that included Baur, Thamm and Parker Schulz, with Evans anchoring them home, finished in 3:26.39.
“We work together. We’re one group,” Weiser said. “And that’s the way we won this today, as one big team.”
And one big family. The coach of the 1990 team, Selma Robinson, was pregnant at the time with her daughter, Molly, now an assistant on the 2016 squad.
“There’s so much continuity,” Weiser said.
It was quite a season for North Penn, quite an overwhelming two days at Bucknell, which included a gold medal swim by the 200 medley relay on Wednesday.
“The last few years were pretty special,” Weiser said of his team, which had come close to a crown in the years leading up, “but this was a whole other level. There’s nowhere else to go from here.”
Pennridge surged to State Runner-Up honors for the first time ever, compiling 169 points, with Mount Lebanon in third with 146.
For North Penn, which bested a field of 57 teams from across the state, the journey was worth every step, every stroke.
“It feels so good,” Evans said, beginning to lose her voice, about the only thing North Penn lost on this day. “This is crazy. From the beginning of the season to feeling out of shape and going into the Christmas break, which is the hardest practices ever, four hours a day, feeling so tired.
“Then in January, doing like 10,000 yards a day (laugh), and then taper came around. And we left it all in the water.”
