On Thursday, February 26 and Friday, February 27, the Norwin Knights swim team traveled to the University of Pittsburgh to compete at the WPIAL Swimming Championships.
Three Knights medaled in individual events at the WPIAL Swimming Championships. Junior Amber Klingensmith earned two medals, placing 2nd in the 100yd backstroke with a time of 56.38 seconds and 5th in the 100yd butterfly with a time of 57.02 seconds. Both of these times qualified her for the PIAA State Championships.
“I was a little disappointed in my fly race, but I was able to come back the next day and do the backstroke a lot better. But, it was a lot of fun to race all the girls that I did and I think it went well,” said Klingensmith.
In addition to Klingensmith, sophomore Remi Detschelt qualified for the PIAA Championships after placing 8th in the 50-yd freestyle at the WPIAL Championships time with a time of 24.49 seconds.
Both Klingensmith and Detschelt also raced in the 200yd Freestyle Relay, joined by freshman Adelle Brown and Senior Kismet Juart. The girls placed 7th with a time of 1 minute and 40.76 seconds. This time, the relay team also earned its way to states.
On the boys’ side, junior Aidan Samuels placed 7th in the 100yd butterfly at the WPIAL Championship.
“I got the podium this year, which was the goal, and I dropped time,” said Aidan. “I’d like to make states next year individually and hopefully bring a relay to states next year too.”
Additionally, the boys’ 400yd freestyle relay, comprised of Liam Samuels, Ellis Slavin, Preston Montag, and Aidan Samuels, swam their way to the podium with an 8th place finish. Their relay time was 3 minutes 18.54 seconds.
With a lot of the medalists returning to the pool next year, the Knights have a promising next season too.
“I’d like to obviously swim faster than I did this year, hopefully bring both relays to states, and then hopefully have some boys join us for states as well,” said Klingensmith.
The season is not fully over yet, as Klingensmith, Detschelt, and the girls’ 200yd relay (Klingensmith, Detshelt, Juart, Brown) raced at the PIAA Swimming Championships on Wednesday, March 11 and Tuesday, March 12 at Bucknell University.
Klingensmith led the team at the PIAA Swimming Championships, with a 10th place finish in the 100yd Butterfly with a finals time of 56.38 seconds and a 11th place finish in the 100yd Backstroke with a finals time of 57.00 seconds. Detschelt swam the 50yd Freestyle in a preliminaries time of 24.91 seconds. The Girls’ 200yd Freestyle relay finished in a time of 1 minutes 41.56 seconds in preliminaries.
“I am incredibly proud of this season’s team. Every member of the varsity team swam well this year. We had freshmen join the team who literally had to learn HOW to swim those first weeks/ months on the team and improved to the extent that they were point scoring swimmers. We had returning swimmers who got their first ever WPIAL cuts. We had the boys 400 free relay on the podium for the first time in 19 years. I could go on and on – because this season was just full of achievements and moments for which I am so grateful to be a part,” Said Coach Bernardi.
