PENN TWP — For 43 years, Penn Valley waited to win an A-K Valley Swim League championship.

The organization might not have to wait too long for another one.

Penn Valley captured its first league title recently at the Laura Doerr Park pool, breaking five pool records during the meet and edging perennial league champion Sylvan by 1Z\x points (1,146Z\x-1,145) in the final team standings.

Sylvan had won the league crown 40 times in the circuit's first 43 years.

"I never thought we had a chance," said Corrie Jones, who is in her 18th year as Penn Valley swim coach. "When the official announcement came, it was a nice surprise."

Penn Valley had 114 swimmers this year, an increase of more than 30 from 2008. Its strength came from swimmers age 12 and younger.

"Through the years, we haven't had a really strong boys team," Jones said. "This year, these young kids were awesome.

"They're a special group. From a coach's standpoint, they're a once-in-a-lifetime group."

The Penn Valley boys tallied 642 team points to runner-up Sylvan's 536 in the 10-team meet. The Penn Valley girls finished third with 504Z\x points, trailing Sylvan's 609 and Vandergrift's 540Z\x.

While Penn Valley broke five pool records at the meet, no other team broke any.

The pool record-setters follow:

• Camryn Forbes in the girls 9-and-10 50-yard butterfly, 29.70 seconds.

• Chadd Cummings in the boys 11-and-12 50-yard breaststroke, 34.16.

• Abigail Jones, Forbes, Kaelyn Emanuel and Macie Pennington in the girls 12-and-under 200-yard freestyle relay, 1:52.06.

• Nate Callithen, Cummings, Max Merhaut and Reed McDonough in the boys 12-and-under 200-yard medley relay, 2:15:31.

• Brian Palmer, Merhaut, McDonough and Cummings in the boys 12-and-under 200-yard freestyle relay, 1:58.23.

In the girls competition, Forbes won the 11-and-12 50-yard freestyle and backstroke, while Ciara Boyle won the 9-and-10 50-yard breaststroke.

In the boys competition, Tre Bartony won the 8-to-10 25-yard backstroke and breaststroke, Leo Merhaut won the 8-to-10 25-yard freestyle, Simon Diehl won the 8-to-10 25-yard butterfly and Max Merhaut took the 9-and-10 50-yard butterfly.

Penn Valley assistant coach Sarah Clouse swam for the program from 1996-2005. She is entering her junior year as a swimmer at Indiana (Pa.) University and completed her fourth season as Jones' assistant.

"We did really well in dual meets this year, so the kids knew they had a chance to do well at the championships," Clouse said. "Our 8-unders won the Lollipop (youth championship) meet earlier, too.

"Everyone began paying more attention to detail, like starts, turns and flips."

While Jones respects her individual champions, she relishes significant improvement in first-year swimmers.

"When I see a kid successfully dive off the blocks for the first time or execute a solid flip-turn in the water, that's an accomplishment," she said. "You're developing a swimmer.

"If these young kids stay with our program, we'll be solid for the next few years. But the trick is getting young kids to stay with the sport."

Jones coaches a lot of the same swimmers in the Butler County Family YMCA program during the winter. Clouse is a former teammate of some of the older swimmers.

"Those kids are great about helping the younger ones," Clouse said.

Clouse stays with the program primarily because of its family nature.

"All four kids in my family swam for Penn Valley," she said. "We get a lot of brothers and sisters in the program. Entire families participate. That's what I love about the sport."

Winning the league championship by 1Z\x points means a lot to Jones from a team perspective.

The top 10 finishers in each of 48 events score team points. The first-place finisher gets 16 points, the 10th-place finisher gets two.

"All during that meet, I had kids coming up to me, jokingly saying 'I scored a point for the team, I contributed.' As it turned out, they all did," she said.