Dallas’ Locklynn Bienkowski won the 200 IM during Friday’s session of the District 2 Class 2A Swimming championships at the Wyoming Valley CYC.
Amber Jones | For Times Leader
Tunkhannock’s Mike Milz swims the final heat of the 100 Fly.
Amber Jones | For Times Leader
Dallas’s Brady Colgan swims the first heat in the 200 IM.
Amber Jones | For Times Leader
Nico Wilk, from Dallas, won the silver medal in the 200 IM.
Amber Jones | For Times Leader
Lake-Lehman’s Molly Migliaccio from Lake Lehman races in the 100 Fly during Friday’s District 2 Class 2A Swimming championships.
Amber Jones | For Times Leader
WILKES-BARRE — The District 2 meet record set by Tunkhannock’s 200 Free Relay team in 2025 only lasted one year before it was broken.
The Tigers won’t be too disappointed, though; they were the record-breakers yet again.
The team of Jaden Baltrusaitis, Chase Newhart, Kyle Kozloski and Aidan Mislevy took down last year’s record by over half a second, winning gold with a time of 1:27.56 in the final event of Friday’s first session of the District 2 Class 2A Swimming Championships.
“You know you could do it, it’s just a matter of who’s it going to come down to,” Baltrusaitis said. “I’m fully grateful that we were able to get that record, and I knew we were going to do it.”
The Tigers looked well on their way to defending the District 2 Boys team title after one day of competition, opening up a commanding lead over Dallas and Lake-Lehman.
Tunkhannock had three total wins on the day: the 200 Medley Relay to open, the 200 Free Relay to close and a 50 Free repeat for Baltrusaitis in the middle.
On the girls’ side, Dallas is in pole position after the first day with Scranton Prep right behind. A strong Dallas freshman class did some damage on Friday, with Macie Stauffer and Locklynn Bienkowski each winning individual golds in their first District 2 meet.
The District 2 Class 2A Swimming Championships will finish up with five more events on Saturday at 5 p.m. inside the Wyoming Valley CYC.
BOYS
Last year’s Tunkhannock team had the most total points of any Class 2A boys team going back at least 20 years. At the halfway point in 2025, the Tigers had 224.5 points.
This year’s squad isn’t too far off that pace, scoring 215 points on Friday to open up a 73-point lead over the field.
All three Tunkhannock wins were repeats, with the Tigers defending the titles in both of Friday’s relays and Baltrusaitis defending the gold in the 50 Free.
For the second straight year, the 50 Free came down to Baltrusaitis and Kozloski, teammates duking it out right to the wall.
Baltrusaitis had just a bit more in the tank, clocking in at 21.43 seconds to Kozloski’s silver medal-winning time of 21.77 seconds.
Adding in Newhart’s fourth-place finish, and the Tunkhannock orange and black took over half the medal podium.
“I don’t really pay attention to other people swimming, I just watch myself and my time,” Baltrusaitis said. “But Kyle’s (Kozloski) one of my good friends, we go head-to-head a lot and he’s really fun to swim against.”
All three of the Tunkhannock medalists in the 50 free would be joined by Aidan Mislevy, himself an individual medalist with a fifth-place finish in the 100 fly, to hunt down a record in the session’s final race.
Baltrusaitis, Kozloski and Mislevy were all on last year’s record-setting 200 Free relay team. Newhart, a freshman, was the new piece to the puzzle and helped the Tigers rewrite the books once again.
A new face, but the same result for the Tigers, not phased by the burden of being the defending champs with all eyes on them.
“It makes me want to swim faster and beat everyone,” Newhart said.
Scranton Prep won two gold medals on Friday, also both repeat champs: Ben Kessler won a very competitive 200 Free and Lukas Iannone dominated in the 200 IM.
The final gold medal during Friday’s session was won by Holy Cross senior Leo Cholish, who won the 100 Fly.
GIRLS
It’s a much tighter team race for the girls in Class 2A, but Dallas remains the team to beat with a 156-142 lead over Scranton Prep.
Prep won three gold medals on Friday to Dallas’ two, with Elk Lake’s Brynn Warriner winning the sixth and final gold with her third straight District 2 title in the 50 Free.
Warriner’s win wasn’t clear initially, as the times on the CYC video board indicated that she finished in a dead tie with Scranton Prep’s Sophia Galko.
After some discussion, it was determined that Warriner’s time was about a half-second faster than Galko, making her three-peat in the 50 Free official.
For Dallas, it was new faces boosting the team to the top of the leaderboard in Stauffer and Bienkowski, a pair of freshmen already making waves at the district level.
Both swimmers won silver medals on the Dallas 200 Medley Relay team, then Stauffer finished five seconds clear of the field to win the 200 Free.
“It wasn’t my best race overall, but I’m still pretty proud of myself,” Stauffer said. “I had a super good competition with one of my teammates beside me.”
Stauffer’s win keeps the 200 Free title not just in the Dallas locker room, but in the family as well: her sister Peyton won the last two golds in the event before graduating last year.
“She’s one of my biggest role models throughout my swimming career,” Stauffer said. “I’m super excited she could be here to watch me today.”
Next up was the 200 IM and it was Bienkowski’s turn to strike gold. She finished comfortably ahead of Scranton Prep’s Ella Schofield to win the first District 2 title of her young career.
“I go all out, I have a tendency to pace myself but in that race I had nothing to lose and just turned on the gas,” Bienkowski said.
Scranton Prep bookended the session with wins in both relay races, and Rebecca Oakes added an individual gold with her third straight win in the 100 Fly.
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District 2 Class 2A Swimming Championships
Girls Team Standings — 1. Dallas (DAL) 156; 2. Scranton Prep (SP) 142; 3. Elk Lake (ELK) 90; 4. Lake-Lehman (LL) 88; 5. Wallenpaupack (WAL) 79; 6. Wyoming Area (WA) 74; 7. Holy Redeemer (HR) 53; 8. Wyoming Seminary (SEM) 23; 9. Dunmore (DUN) 22; 10. Valley View (VV) 17; 11. North Pocono (NP) 13; 12. Holy Cross (HC) 7.
Boys Team Standings — 1. Tunkhannock (TUN) 215; 2. Dallas (DAL) 142; 3. Lake-Lehman (LL) 130; 4. Scranton Prep (SP) 87; 5. Holy Cross (HC) 42; 6. Holy Redeemer (HR) 38; 7. Wyoming Seminary (SEM) 35; 8. Wallenpaupack (WAL) 31; 9. Elk Lake (ELK) 30; 10. Berwick (BER) 15; T11. Valley View (VV) 10; T11. Dunmore (DUN) 10; 13. Wyoming Area (WA) 3.
Girls 200 Medley Relay — 1. SP (Sophia Galko, Eva Kaszuba, Rebecca Oakes, Ella Schofield) 1:49.40; 2. DAL 1:50.73; 3. LL 2:01.59; 4. WAL 2:05.43; 5. HR 2:09.73; 6. WA 2:14.93.
Boys 200 Medley Relay — 1. TUN (Kyle Kozloski, Chase Newhart, Aidan Mislevy, Jaden Baltrusaitis) 1:40.08; 2. SP 1:41.71; 3. DAL 1:50.73; 4. LL 1:54.24; 5. WAL 1:56.94; 6. SEM 1:57.66.
Girls 200 Free — 1. Macie Stauffer (DAL) 1:59.26; 2. Rachel Ryu (SEM) 2:04.88; 3. Julia Gavlick (DAL) 2:05.64; 4. Hailey Bond (LL) 2:14.72; 5. Zoee Stuckey (WAL) 2:15.83; 6. Allison Long (ELK) 2:19.25.
Boys 200 Free — 1. Ben Kessler (SP) 1:46.74; 2. Chase Kresge (DAL) 1:46.81; 3. Braydon Christopher (TUN) 1:49.76; 4. Connor Runquist (LL) 1:50.33; 5. Logan Teaman (TUN) 1:52.98; 6. Nicholas Belfino (DAL) 1:59.95.
Girls 200 IM — 1. Locklynn Bienkowski (DAL) 2:09.86; 2. Ella Schofield (SP) 2:14.37; 3. Hannah Kuhar (LL) 2:26.97; 4. Samira Feller (WAL) 2:28.98; 5. Myla Kopa (SP) 2:31.69; 6. Anna Millett (SP) 2:32.63.
Boys 200 IM — 1. Lukas Iannone (SP) 1:54.81; 2. Nico Wilk (DAL) 2:03.74; 3. Jack Kashatus (LL) 2:06.01; 4. Andrew Morris (LL) 2:10.13; 5. Josiah Frey (LL) 2:15.69; 6. Noah Salters (TUN) 2:18.15.
Girls 50 Free — 1. Brynn Warriner (ELK) 24.85; 2. Sophia Galko (SP) 25.44; 3. Eva Kaszuba (SP) 26.09; 4. AnnaLee Protasiewicz (WAL) 26.53; 5. Rachel Ryu (SEM) 26.69; 6. Olivia Davie (HR) 27.36.
Boys 50 Free — 1. Jaden Baltrusaitis (TUN) 21.43; 2. Kyle Kozloski (TUN) 21.77; 3. Simon Madore (HC) 22.15; 4. Chase Newhart (TUN) 22.77; 5. Aiden Gallagher (LL) 23.40; 6. Calder Watkins (DAL) 23.64.
Girls 100 Fly — 1. Rebecca Oakes (SP) 57.87; 2. Alexandra Johnson (NP) 1:00.60; 3. Maria-Lucia Priore (DAL) 1:01.73; 4. Chelsea Grosvenor (ELK) 1:04.79; 5. Carlee Monko (LL) 1:07.53; 6. Arden Brunn (HR) 1:11.22.
Boys 100 Fly — 1. Leo Cholish (HC) 54.28; 2. Nico Wilk (DAL) 54.72; 3. Sawyer Valkenburg (DAL) 55.36; 4. Andrew Morris (LL) 56.87; 5. Aidan Mislevy (TUN) 58.45; 6. Mike Milz (TUN) 58.59.
Girls 200 Free Relay — 1. SP (Eva Kaszuba, Sophia Galko, Ella Schofield, Rebecca Oakes) 1:40.48; 2. ELK 1:45.82; 3. LL 1:48.96; 4. WA 1:51.06; 5. WAL 1:51.15; 6. DAL 1:56.75.
Boys 200 Free Relay — 1. TUN (Jaden Baltrusaitis, Chase Newhart, Kyle Kozloski, Aidan Mislevy) 1:27.56*; 2. LL 1:32.63; 3. DAL 1:32.66; 4. SP 1:33.59; 5. HR 1:40.31; 6. ELK 1:40.33.
* — new District 2 record
