Despite being one of the top distance swimmers in the area, Wilkinson is always placed in Lane 1 or Lane 8 for the 200- and 500-yard freestyles as an exhibition swimmer at Lancaster-Lebanon League meets. That’s because Donegal only has a handful of swimmers, so she competes off to the side.
“There’s definitely a challenge,” Wilkinson said. “We get put on the outside lanes, we don’t get to swim relays, but you do get close with the teammates you do have.”
Nevertheless, Wilkinson makes the most of each race. On Thursday, she added a couple of more wins. While Warwick and McCaskey were having a dual meet, Wilkinson posted the best times in the pool with a 2:07.08 in the 200 free and a 5:46.41 in the 500 free.
Her top career times are 2:00.72 and 5:31.34, respectively.
Wilkinson started swimming at age 5 and slowly gravitated to the distance events.
“It seems daunting at first, when you tell people that you swim a 20 laps event,” Wilkinson said. “Once you get that distance, you feel that stroke click and it’s a beautiful stroke and race to swim in.”
This winter, she hopes to break the two-minute mark in the 200 free and get under 5:25 in the 500 free. After that, her plans are to go to Messiah, where her older brothers, Tyler and Aiden, are on the swim team.
“I’ve been following in my brothers’ footsteps,” Wilkinson said.
Last year, Wilkinson was sixth at the L-L meet with a 2:01.22 in the 200 freestyle and 12th in the 500 freestyle with a 5:35.21. She followed that with a fourth-place 2:00.73 and a seventh-place 5:31.11, respectively, in the District Three Class 2A meet.
Time off is over
The aforementioned Warwick-McCaskey meet was the first L-L meet after the holiday break, when area swim teams went anywhere from 10 to 14 days between competitive meets.
For some, like Warwick junior Tenra Adams, it may have appeared on the outside that coming back was no big deal. After all, Adams won the 100 backstroke (1:02.25) and the 100 freestyle (55.38). But it was still an adjustment, especially when Adams and her 400 freestyle relay teammates were called on with short notice to finish the meet and protect Warwick’s lead.
“It was so hard,” said Adams, who at the time was still on school break from Linden Hall, which co-ops with Warwick. “We (Adams and Melanie Hahn) were still on break from school, so we felt we were still on break. We needed our teammates to build us up.”
Adams, Hahn, Adelaide Pusey and Hayden Eby overcame both their time off and the quick turnaround to win the race in 4:01.62, leading to an 85-74 win over McCaskey.
For her part, Donegal’s Wilkinson did not have any surprise events in the competition, but coming back from break presented its own unique challenges.
“I just got my wisdom teeth out, so I’m also recovering from surgery,” she said. “But you als... Click here to read full article
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