Youth Prevails on Senior Night

Colby Simes and the rest of the Ephrata seniors celebrated their final home swimming meet at the Ephrata Rec Center Tuesday against rival Cocalico.

However, even with the senior ceremony taking place at intermission, it was the Mountaineers’ underclassmen who stole the show.

While Simes did his part, winning the 200-yard freestyle and 100 free, the rest of Ephrata’s individual wins — for both boys and girls — came from those not a part of the festivities.

All of that youthful success added up to a pair of Lancaster- Lebanon League Section Two wins for the Mountaineers, 111-56 in the girls meet and 111-59 in the boys.

“The next couple of years they have a lot of potential to keep growing, even farther than they already are,” Simes said of his younger teammates. “They are in fantastic shape now, but I know I will keep looking at what they are doing in the future.”

Freshmen combined for five individual wins for the girls, and were a big part of the relays’ success. That included freshman sensation Ava Knopsnyder, who set a pool record in the 500 free with her time of 5:05.53.

That time was nearly one minute, nine seconds faster than second place and later, she won the 100 backstroke — by almost 12 seconds, in 1:02.88.

Fellow ninth graders Bria Burkholder and Megan Martin also added wins. Burkholder won the 50 (26.59) and 100 (58.38) races, while Martin was tops in the 200 individual medley (2:29.15).

Sophomore Kauri Parsons notched wins in the 200 free (2:05.52) and 100 butterfly (1:08.34).

In addition to Simes’ times of 1:56.91 and 52.11, the boys had sophomore Ethan Lloyd and freshman Joey Myer leading the way. Lloyd won the 200 IM (2:03.16) and 100 backstroke (57.62), while Myer scored the opposite- events, 50 (23.42) and 500 free (5:14.62).

Junior Chad Jones added the other victory with an outstanding 100 breaststroke time of 1:01.96.

“They did so well,” Mountaineers coach Mickey Molchany said of his young swimmers. “On the girls side, we are a year or two away from being super competitive in the league. This year we are getting those younger kids experience so they can fill leadership roles.”

After the meet, Simes looked at the new record board shared by both Ephrata and Cocalico, which also calls the Rec Center home. He said there likely will be a lot of updates in the future.

“Especially Ava. In a couple years, she is going to have that record board,” he said. “Chad did one of his best-ever times in the breaststroke. They are going to be up there a lot, I can already tell. They are going to keep getting faster.”

Fittingly, Cocalico’s victories were also by underclassmen: junior Rylee Nedimyer in the girls 100 breaststroke (1:15.41) and freshman Logan Sensenig in the boys butterfly (58.75).

Though he said it’s hard to believe he celebrated his high school senior night, Simes was glad to have it behind him heading into Thursday’s big meet at Elizabethtown that will likely determine Section Two titles for both boys and girls.

“It’s nice we have senior night tonight, therefore we can have more fun tonight and have that competition on Thursday,” he said. “Now that senior night is out of our minds, the next two days we are focused and ready for our biggest meet of the year.”

Both Ephrata teams are 5-0 in Section Two, 6-1 overall, while Cocalico’s boys are 3-1, 6-1 and the girls are 2-2, 3-4.

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