Swimmers’ Success at Districts

Sierra Houck, Grant Leibfried, Haley Leibfried, Emma Myers, Ethan Shonk, and Kylie Wilkinson recently represented Donegal swimming at the District 3 swimming championships Friday, March 4th & Saturday, March 5th.

Congratulation to Ethan Shonk on winning the District 3 section 2A 100 backstroke title by more than four seconds! Teammate Grant Leibfried won the 2A silver medal in the 100 free. The pair spoke to Lancaster Online:

“It wasn’t a personal best but it’s pretty close to it,” Shonk said. “I was hoping to go under 51, but at states I think with a lot of top guys there, I will go under 51 easily. I try not to focus on that when I go into a race, I try to swim my race. I kind of saw where I was coming off of my walls. You don’t want to get cocky and let up. You want to finish the race hard.”

“Seeing him (Leibfried) go a great time, seeing what he could do in his event kind of boosted my hopes a little bit and it gave me more motivation,” Shonk said. “I still have my best times to go. It’s not over yet, so I’ve got to finish season hard.”

“I am happy with myself. I had a little difficult beginning of the season, but I turned it around, started working hard and it’s paying off right now,” said Leibfried, “I needed to put more muscle on, so I started going to the gym more. I started trying harder in practice. Those two things have really been helping me.”

In girls swimming, two Donegal athletes medaled: Sierra Houck took sixth in the 100 free and Kylie Wilkinson took seventh in the 500 free.