Winter is coming, which means the Bobcat Swim and Dive Team is ready to practice, compete, and hopefully win.

WPIAL’s official mandatory practice date is November 19, but with the Beaver Area High School (BAHS) indoor pool remaining out of commission for major renovation, the swim team must practice elsewhere for their preseason.

If everything goes smoothly the pool should be done for November 19.

The team’s roster has been down in numbers throughout recent years, making points hard to obtain and meets hard to win.

The returning team members have been trying to recruit as many swimmers as possible, regardless of skill level or gender, because the PIAA categorizes teams based on how many students attend the school in grades 9-11.

Even though there are 486 students at BAHS in these grades, only around 15 are currently on the swim and dive team. This means the Bobcats compete against much bigger teams, such as Blackhawk and Central Valley, that have roughly the same number of students in their classes but larger swim program rosters.

Since swimming is scored on a point system, much like track and field, this means that the current swim team members have to win almost every race in order to overpower the quantity of swimmers on rival teams.

To get a jump on the competition, the Bobcats decided to do preseason training at Moon Area High School to get valuable hours in the pool while renovation work continues on the BAHS pool.

As well as the team swimming at a new, temporary pool, the team is expecting a brand new assistant coach. The team currently is led by Coach Marc Williams.

Practices at Moon mean the team must get a school bus at 7:20 p.m. for practices to begin at 8 p.m. Their practices end at 9:30 p.m., and then they have to change, get on the bus, return to BAHS, and then finally go home from BAHS.

The swim team gets back to BAHS at roughly 10:15 p.m.

“It doesn’t affect my sleep, and it’s really fun!” said freshman diver Haley O’Brien about the late evenings.

However, this schedule is hard for many of the swimmers trying to maintain a healthy sleep schedule despite getting home so late. Some swimmers have to be at school even earlier than the rest of the school population due to other club involvement, and of course there are multiple homework assignments that some swimmers may still have to complete before bed.

For many athletes, regardless of sport, training schedules can be extremely stressful and time consuming, but it’s all for the common goal of doing better and becoming stronger and faster. This is incredibly evident in the work that the Bobcat swimmers and divers are putting in for their upcoming meets!

“Everyone includes everyone, and it’s a great learning experience,” added O’Brien.