Competing for your high school team in any sport is not always about winning a district championship or finishing first in your division.
Just ask Morgan Lee, a pole vaulter for the track team and clarinet player for the Quakertown Community High School Marching Band. Lee is a member of the varsity swim team, which has just 26 swimmers – 18 girls and eight boys in addition to four swimmers from Palisades High School.
“We have a very small team so we haven’t won a bunch of meets but I do think that friendship is the one of the things that’s most important, other than swimming,” Lee explained.
“And just beating your own times is pretty cool and I feel like we have a really supportive team in that area. If we don’t have that strong bond, then beating your own times isn’t going to be as exciting.
Lee started off the season doing the 100-yard butterfly in 1:21 and has whittled that down to 1:15. In the 100 freestyle event, Lee was able to take two seconds off her previous personal record in the event.
“I keep trying hard to get those (times) down, especially because a lot of people don’t swim butterfly,” said Lee. “I’m going to keep trying to beat my time in that so that I can be one of the best.”
On the boys side, there’s sophomore Josh Miller, the only football player to come out for swimming both this year and last. Miller is a JV player for the Quakertown football team and plays wide receiver/linebacker for the Panthers. He recently recovered a pair of fumbles for Quakertown JV football, which went 7-1 last fall.
In the swimming pool, Miller excels at backstroke – he notched a first-place finish at the Upper Dublin meet. Miller also takes part in the 400 free relay team that notched first-place finishes at both the Abington and Upper Dublin meets.
Miller teamed up with junior Jack Sears and senior captains Connor Frisch and Josh Einolf to take first in the relay facing the Galloping Ghosts with junior George Schoeffling taking the place of Sears vs. the Cardinals.
Participation on the swim team means practice five afternoons a week at Upper Bucks YMCA that are mandatory with two morning sessions that are optional.
Miller uses his time with the swim team to stay in shape in the offseason and finds there are multiple benefits to competing in the water during the winter.
“It helps you stay in shape because you’re constantly swimming in the water every day,” Miller said.
“All the movements that you do in swimming, I think, it helps balance out all the muscles that you’re working. I also think it helps strengthen your tendons.”
Lee also finds benefits to competing in swimming. In the spring, she competes in the pole vault for the Panthers’ track team. Breath control is a very big factor in terms of translating over to track, she said.
“It definitely helps with breathing,” said Lee. “Because when you run, you have to have a lot of control (over your breathing). And when you swim, you cannot breathe that often if you want to keep pushing and going faster.”
According to Lee, some of the more accomplished swimmers on the Quakertown team include junior Kara Woods, senior captain Maria Wehmeyer, junior Alexandra Tantorno and Evelyn Einolf.
Indeed, Woods is one of two swimmers for the girls who have qualified for districts. She placed first in the 100 fly and the 100 back at the Upper Dublin meet and first in the fly at the Abington meet. The other district qualifier is junior Victoria Oldford, one of three girls swimmers from Palisades.
Qualifying on the boys side are senior co-captain Josh Einolf and Tobias Olmstead, another swimmer from Palisades.
Einolf comes from a long line of swimmers in his family including his brother Caleb, who recently earned first team All-Presidents Athletic Conference (PAC) honors after taking gold in the 100 fly and four other relay team events his freshman year at Grove City College. Einolf also has a brother Tyler, a two-year captain for the boys swim team who now attends West Point Military Academy.
In the Abington meet, Einolf notched first-place finishes in the 200 IM and 100 breast. In the Upper Dublin meet, he touched back first in both the 100 fly and 100 breast along with swimming anchor on the 400 free relay team.
“Josh is extremely talented; he can swim every stroke and has a great personality – joking, gets everybody rallied up,” stated Quakertown head coach Meg Gansz. “Butterfly is his thing; before, it was always breaststroke but he pretty much qualified (for districts) for every stroke he’s tried.
“Two hundred free, 50 free – there’s not one place where he really has a weakness.”
Frisch is also a two-year captain for the boys. A distance swimmer, Frisch finished first in the 500 free at the Abington meet. For the girls, Evelyn Einolf, the youngest Einolf on the team as a sophomore, took first in the 100 breast at both the Abington and the Upper Dublin meets.
And the girls 400 free relay team finished first in both of those meets. At the Abington meet on Jan. 5, it was Woods and Tantorno teaming up with sophomore Rebecca Cunnane and senior captain Natalie Miller – Josh’s sister. At the Upper Dublin meet on Jan. 8, it was Woods and Tantorno teaming up with Lee and Evelyn Einolf. Woods, Tantorno and Einolf also joined up with junior Addison Kucera – a recent transfer from Lansdale Catholic – to finish first in the 200 medley relay at Upper Dublin.
With not much time left in the swim season, the Panthers look to SOL Championships set to take place Feb. 9-10 at Upper Dublin and districts set for Feb. 23-24 at York YMCA. Last year at SOLs, Josh Einolf placed second in the 100 fly and third in the 100 back while Woods took third in the 100 back for the girls.
Quakertown also has its Senior Night pending vs. Colonial League rival Salisbury Jan. 26 at Upper Bucks YMCA.
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