With only six weeks left in the season and one more regular season meet to qualify for MACs the Aqua Cats are moving fast and working hard!

The Beaver Area swim and dive team is looking impressive in their scores and meet results despite having to overcome many challenges.

Multiple swimmers have had to quarantine or stay home because of a positive COVID test as well as over four meets being cancelled and rescheduled for later dates.

Rescheduling meets has become problematic for some swimmers because once rescheduled most of these meets are after MACs.

But despite challenges, team members remain positive.

Junior Olivia Wooley stated, “This has been my favorite [swim] season by far; the people are so kind, and everybody on the team puts so much hard work into what they do. It’s very inspiring to see.”

“My season is going good; it’s stressful but fun with everyone on the team, and my new events are going okay. I'm working on them,” said freshman Maddy Mooney.

Some swimmers are so close to qualifying for MACs and need to drop fractions of seconds, but now they only have two more meets to try and drop their times instead of three or four more chances.

The girls’ team has won all three of their most recent competitions against the Allderdice Dragons January 11, Cornell Raiders January 19, and Beaver Falls Tigers January 26.

The girls had a very close meet against Allderdice, their only triple-A competition this year, with Beaver Area coming out on top 76-64 and also topping Cornell 59-44.

In the most recent meet the girls defeated Beaver Falls 82-64.

The boys’ team fell to Allderdice but conquered Cornell and Beaver Falls.

The boys also had a very tight meet against Allderdice with a score of 85-73 and a score against Cornell of 64-11.

Along with the girls the boys also conquered the Tigers with the final score being 62-53.

At Allderdice, the girls had several first-place finishes including senior Emma Schaller winning the 100 and 200 yard freestyle, senior Hannah Hartle winning the 500 yard freestyle, and freshman Ava Sutter winning the 50 yard freestyle. The girls 200 yard freestyle relay, which included Schaller, Hartle, Sutter, and sophomore Lizzy Michael also conquered the Dragons.

Junior Ella Andrew said, “I love cheering on my teammates at meets and the environment of the team.”

The boys also had individual victories against Allderdice which included junior Brandon Osborne winning the 200 yard freestyle and junior Robert Cestra winning the 50 yard freestyle and 100 yard backstroke.

Divers Lizzy Michael and Nate Grunberg both achieved WPIAL cuts at the Cornell meet, as well as sophomore Graham Lovra qualifying for MACs in the 50 and 100 yard freestyle.

“The Cornell meet was good and very eventful because I had to swim the 100 fly and 100 breast,” said Mooney.

Junior Jackson Vuckovich also got his MAC cut against Cornell by a fraction of a second in the 500 yard freestyle.

At Beaver Falls on the girls side, Hartle tallied four first-place finishes along with Schaller and Sutter both having three first-place finishes.

For the boys’ team Lovra had four first place finishes next to juniors Jameson Bonnar, Vuckovich, and Cestra’s three first-place point finishes.

“Beaver Falls pool was very nice and I felt like I went faster,” stated Mooney.

The swim and dive team competed against the Hopewell Vikings January 28 at home. Results for that meet and other swimming and diving action will appear in the next BASD ECHO.