After battling through the lingering symptoms of mononucleosis at the U.S. Olympic swim trials earlier this month, St. Petersburg’s Megan Romano bounced back in a big way at the FINA Junior Swimming Championships in Monterrey, Mexico.

Romano, who attends Northeast High, teamed up with Dagny Knutson, Elizabeth Pelton and Samantha Tucker turned to turn in a winning 400-meter freestyle relay time on Saturday of 3 minutes, 43.54 seconds. That not only took the gold medal but it also bettered the former meet record by more than three seconds.

A total of 588 swimmers competed in this meet for swimmers between 14-17 years of age for girls and between 15-18 years of age for boys. The U.S. squad was selected from the results of the Olympic swim trials.

With the help of young swimmers like Romano, Team USA won the final medal count with 21—including nine gold—to easily out-distance runner-up Russia, which tallied 13 medals.