The swimmers at the YMCA of Reading and Berks County are state champions.
The team won the championship the weekend of March 22-24 at the 2024 Pennsylvania State Swimming Championships at Mylan Park Aquatic Center in Morgantown, West Virginia, scoring 510.5 points with York YMCA second with 487 points.
“Winning a Pennsylvania YMCA State Championship is an amazing feeling for all our coaches and swimmers,” head swim coach Kim Evans said. “Their hard work paid off with fun and fast swimming.”
At the state championships, 10 swimmers, including four from Berks County high schools, qualified for the Nationals April 2-6 in Greensboro, North Carolina.
The four swimmers from Berks County high schools were Frankie Dimartini and Keagan Eisenhofer of Wilson, and Owen Eisenhofer and Annie Gao of Schuylkill Valley.
“Qualifying for Nationals is the ultimate goal,” Evans said via email. “It means that they have achieved the highest level of YMCA swimming in the nation. Swimmers who reach this level have worked very hard in and out of the pool and are celebrated by the entire team the very moment they achieve their first qualifying time. There are often big smiles that are accompanied by tears of joy.”
The team’s season began in September with six practices a day for six months.
“Swimmers at this level are confident and looking forward to the competition,” Evans said of her swimmers’ season-ending competition. “They’ve worked very hard to get this far and were excited about the entire experience.”
Owen Eisenhofer and Keagan Eisenhofer were part of the 200-meter medley team with Ethan Lloyd and Joey Myer of Ephrata, which placed 16th in the race.
Reading Berks County finished in 24th place in the team standings out of teams at Nationals.
“My expectations for Nationals were to squeeze one or two more best times out of each swimmer and make it to the podium for both the men’s and the women’s competitions so we could finish with a combined team score,” Evans said. “I couldn’t be prouder of how hard they worked and of their achievements.”