Marian’s Dando cops swimming gold

OREFIELD — Marian Catholic’s Maddie Dando came into the District 11 Swimming Championships at Parkland High School not only thinking about districts and the potential to swim at states in a couple of weeks, but she had her eye on qualifying for nationals as well.

After a second-place finish in the 200-yard IM on Friday, Dando focused intently on the 100-yard backstroke. As it turned out, the event became a whirlwind of emotions thanks to a technical glitch that prevented the times from being shown on the electronic scoreboard.

“The timer told me 58.94 [seconds], so I jumped up in the air as soon as I heard that because I’ve been wanting to go under 59 for a couple of years now, and the nationals time is 59.09, so I was just ecstatic,” explained Dando.

When she got out of the pool and double-checked the score on a scoring app, her time was listed as 59.11, and heartbreak set in.

“I started crying until they came back and told me the app had it wrong and my time was 59.06, so I’ve cried like three times in the past half-hour, and twice they were happy tears. I really could not be any happier than I am right now; this is everything that I’ve worked for.”

In addition to qualifying for nationals, Dando gets a ticket to the PIAA meet at Bucknell University March 13 and 14. This was Dando’s third gold medal in the backstroke, and will be her third trip to states.

Panther Valley’s Emily Newton took home second place in the 100-yard breaststroke and will wait to see if her district time of 1:08.42 will be fast enough to get her a bid to the PIAA meet. Teammate Erika Zimmerman is in the same holding pattern after finishing fourth with a time of 5:20.20 in the 500-yard freestyle event. Another Panther Valley swimmer, junior Jacqueline Kokinda, just missed going to the medal stand when she finished .16 seconds behind fourth-place finisher Julia Graver of Salisbury in the 100-yard backstroke.

For the boys, Dillon Scott of Northwestern Lehigh finished third in the 500-yard freestyle, just .63 behind silver medalist Ryan Evert of North Schuylkill. Scott finished sixth in Friday’s 200-yard IM, but he didn’t come away empty-handed. Scott received the John Vernon Memorial Scholarship, which is given to swimmers who compete without the benefit of having a high school team to train and compete with, often making it more difficult to even reach, let alone do well in districts.

“I was very nervous coming in because I knew I was seeded fourth, which is right on the edge of medals,” said Scott. “I had been watching the results from all of the other swimmers, and I was afraid they were going to catch up to me, but I figured it was my last race of high school, so I would give it everything I got and it paid off.”

Palmerton’s Carson Allen took home a bronze medal in the 100-yard breaststroke, finishing with a time of 1:02.64. Northern Lehigh’s Jovannie Avila placed sixth in the 100-yard freestyle.

In relays, Tamaqua’s girls placed fourth in the 400-yard freestyle relay with a team of senior Brianna Dumond, juniors Nicole Aguero-Ramirez and Madelyn Jones and sophomore Maura Walker. The Tamaqua boys 400-yard freestyle team placed eighth.

Blue Mountain High School won both the boys and girls team competitions, with Tamaqua placing seventh on the girls side. The Tamaqua boys’ team placed eighth in the team standings. Pepper Ritchey of Moravian Academy and Brenek Strawn of Bangor were honored with the Dennis A. McGinley Award as the top female and male swimmer of the district competition.