NEWTOWN SQUARE – In what she called “a tumultuous year,” swimming was an anchor for Devyn Sargent.
It was 2020, which generally, enough said. The end of her eighth grade year was interrupted at St. Norbert’s. She started high school at the Academy of Notre Dame in the fall, first virtually, then hybrid, eating lunch at her desk around classmates she had little opportunity to meet.
The one respite and sense of connection came at morning practices at Suburban Swim Club, where she could interact with teammates and start to get a foothold in the Notre Dame community.
“I got really close with people like Tori and Gabi Abruzzo and Kaitlyn (Kolessar), because I was seeing them all the time at our morning practices,” she said. “That was super helpful to know people outside of my classes.”
Jacob Johnson’s pandemic-related aha moment waited until the spring of 2021. With the spring of 2020 diminished by COVID-19, he took stock of what he wanted out of the sport once he reached Springfield High School. He moved forward with more intentionality, then felt the sting of missing the PIAA Championships as a freshman, held with fewer participants in the name of social distancing. His classmate, Jake Kennedy, made the cut, which lit a fire under Johnson.
“I feel like freshman year, my head wasn’t really in it with swimming,” he said. “It allowed me to take a step back, take a good look at where I fit in the sport and where I wanted to be and not just have my head down about it. I feel like that gave me a lot of perspective about where I was and what I needed to do to get where I wanted to be.”
The changes paid off for both swimmers, each of whom attend schools with limited past success in the sport and the constant battle for practice time in schools that lack pools. Sargent earned a place among many Notre Dame standouts, in a program that in the last half-decade has become an elite destination in the crowded Main Line field. Johnson has helped Springfield, which had never won a state swimming title before 2023, win six in the last two iterations of the PIAA championships.
Both added their names to the Delco record board before heading off to prime college destinations: Sargent at Yale, Johnson at Minnesota.
They are the 2023-24 Daily Times Swimmers of the Year.
The duo is joined by Sargent’s teammates Tori Abruzzo, Gabi Abruzzo and Kaitlyn Kolessar; Johnson’s mate Kennedy; Ridley diver Ava Keller and sprinter Shane Eckler; Interboro diver Kylie Arnot; the Haverford School trio of Zack Oswald, Max Marr and AJ Rosenberger; Episcopal Academy’s Molly Lo and Jonathan Hoole of Penncrest.
All four classes are represented among the 14 honorees, led by seven seniors, including 4-for-4 picks Kennedy and Rosenberger. Sargent, Johnson, Tori Abruzzo, Marr and Eckler are three-timers. Arnot, Kolessar and Hoole are on the team for a second straight year. The All-Delco team is selected in consultation with area coaches.
The historical precedent is hard to overstate. Before Kennedy was named All-Delco in 2021, Springfield hadn’t had an All-Delco since John Quagliariello in 2011. Kennedy and Johnson are the first Springfield Swimmers of the Year, Kennedy in 2022. Between them, they collected 17 states medals.
Johnson entered rare company with three states golds this year. He went 45.70 in both prelims and finals of the boys 100 butterfly, his winning margin nearly 2 seconds. It cleaved nearly 2 seconds off his Delco record from 2023. Before him, no Delco high schooler had been lower than 48.74, a quantum leap.
Johnson also won his ostensibly weaker event, the 100 free, in 44.30. Both times are All-American cuts.
He split an insane 20.49 in fly in the 200 medley relay to team with Kennedy and All-Delco second-teamers Tristan Ronayne and Alex Chan to win gold in 1:30.04. The foursome was the runner-up in the 200 free relay to Conestoga. Both swims downed Delco records, the 200 free, axing .88 second off the mark Haverford School had set in 2018.
Odd as it was for the occasionally shy Johnson to get recognition with his teammates after states, they’ve irrevocably changed the trajectory of Springfield swimming. In a district with lots of athletic success and no shortage of community swimming infrastructure, the pieces for high school swimming excellence hadn’t come together until this storied generation.
“It’s really cool because there hasn’t been a good group like this in Springfield, ever,” he said. “I know with the lacrosse team, there’s a tradition of excellence, going to state championships, winning state championships, winning district championships, all of that. That hasn’t really been a thing for swimming in Springfield. I think there’s a sense of pride that we kind of put Springfield out there for swimming.”
Johnson had a hand in three of the eight Delco records set this year. Sargent was part of three others.
An IMer by trade, she finished second at Easterns in a Notre Dame 1-2-3, behind Tori Abruzzo and ahead of Kolessar. But the more consequential swim was her 100 breaststroke.
With Abruzzo in the 100 back, Sargent’s preferred event, she and coach Brigit Barry strategized a move to the 100 breast in search of more team points. Sargent had never gone quicker than 1:07.10 before. At an Inter-Ac Invitational dry run “with absolutely no expectations,” she went 1:03.63, bang on the winning Easterns time from 2023.
“Brigit was like, yeah, you definitely have to do that,” Sargent said.
Her first few weeks of dedicated breaststroke training ever dropped Sargent to 1:02.10, good for second at Easterns, an All-American cut and a Delco record. She helped Notre Dame set county relay marks in the 200 medley and 400 free, both All-American times to finish second and third, respectively, at Easterns.
All-Delco tells a tale about Notre Dame’s growth. Barry was the swimmer of the year in 2001. But from 2008 to Mia Abruzzo’s 2018 Swimmer of the Year honor, the Irish had no All-Delcos. In the last seven years, they’ve produced four Swimmers of the Year and 18 All-Delco nods from seven individuals.
It’s less a program on the rise than one that has risen, taking swimmers like Sargent from aspiring young talents to custodians of the culture.
“I think we’re leading by example,” she said. “It’s the expectation now. We’ve gone in the last couple of years and our relays have been super on top of it and focused and ready to go, and now people are watching that and cheering for us, and that’s the norm that we’re setting.”
