Emmaus boys win team silver at states

The Emmaus boys’ swimming team followed up their 14th straight district team championship with a second-place finish at states Saturday, picking up seven of the eight medals earned by local swimmers and relay teams. All three relay teams finished with medals, including a silver and a bronze and a group of four seniors led the way in both individual and relay medals. Senior Luke Rautzhan came home with two silver and two bronze medals. The other medal going to a local swimmer went to Liberty’s Addison Collins, who placed eighth in the 50-yard freestyle.

Emmaus’ Luke Rautzhan set the tone early for the Emmaus Hornets bringing the team back in the final leg of the 200-yard medley relay to finish second in the event at Cumberland Valley High School. Rautzhan swam the final leg of the event and took the team from fourth to second giving the Hornets a quick start at the event. Rautzhan’s other silver medal came in the 50-yard freestyle and he added bronze medals in the 200-yard freestyle relay and the 100-yard freestyle.

“I think part of it was that we came in here today and had fun,” said Rautzhan of the team’s success. “We weren’t really worried about points or where we were finishing and we had fun and swam well. Actually, I think we kind of surprised ourselves with how well we did.”

Soares is an interesting story since he left Cumberland Valley with three medals, including a silver in the 100-yard breaststroke, an event he initially wasn’t going to be able to compete in for Emmaus. Initially, only gold medal winners from districts were going to receive spots at states, but the PIAA opened the event up to gold medal winners and others with the best district times from across the state, giving Soares a shot. He entered the breaststroke as the ninth-seed and finished with a silver medal.

“I was really upset after districts and I went to these three guys [Connor Shriver, Michael Iacobelli and Luke Rautzhan] and I got motivation from them and putting in fast times,” said Soares. “When I got in, I just wanted to make the most of the opportunity.”

Liberty’s Addison Collins also wasn’t initially going to be swimming at states until the field was expanded. Like Soares, the junior swimmer took advantage of the chance to compete at states and moved from being seeded 13th to finishing eighth with a time of :21.15 in the 50-yard freestyle.

“I worked on my start a lot in practice and I got a start today that was much smoother than the one I had at districts,” remembered Collins. “Both the start and my swim in general felt a lot cleaner than what I did in districts. I snuck into eighth by three-tenths of a second but I’ll take it.”

Collins’ Liberty teammate, Patrick Gilhool, finished in a tie for tenth in the 100-yard butterfly and finished 11th in the 100-yard backstroke.

Emmaus finished second in the team standings to LaSalle College, who benefited greatly from the expanded field. LaSalle added seven swimmers across five different individual events in the competition. While the meet quickly became a battle for second, Emmaus coach Tim O’Connor was elated with his team’s performance.

“Every one of our swimmers turned in a best-time in their event, every one,” said a noticeably excited O’Connor. “It’s a testament to what we endured during the season when we had practices at 11:00 at night, we had practices outside in 20-degree weather and we fought through a couple shutdowns in our own school district,” said O’Connor. “Our boys – especially our senior leadership – was absolutely phenomenal and they had a great attitude coming in and we knew we had a shot to at least be runner-up.”

24. Liberty 31.5
35. Parkland 18