The Beaver Area swim and dive team got off to a fantastic start in their first meet of the season against Seton LaSalle Catholic High School December 10.

The boys team, building on their impressive record last year, won by a 53 points at 83-31. The girls had an impressive first showing as well, losing by only 8 points with the final score being 89-81. Considering that a majority of the girls team is made up of newcomers, they only have room to improve as the season continues.

Sophomore Maddi Giamo, one of those newcomers, is optimistic of her chances in the remaining meets.

"The best thing about starting at the bottom is that there’s nowhere to go but up," she said.

The meet began, as it always does, with the diving competition. Despite the Bobcat team having several divers in training, only senior Andrew Cestra dove.

Despite this situation, Cestra has faith in the new divers.

"It's hard to tell how they will do this early in, but I definitely see some potential in some of [the divers] to be future point-scorers for Beaver," said Cestra.

Cestra gave an excellent demonstration of his skills receiving scores from the judges consistently above 7, some reaching as high as a 9.

While the meet was going as expected at this point, there was a welcome surprise for the four swimmers on the 200 independent medley relay: they qualified for WPIALs on their very first race.

Junior Alec Nachman, one of the four boys on the relay, naturally was pleased with the results.

"It feels good! We have been practicing the hardest ever this season, and it’s very rewarding to see success on the first race of the season," Nachman said.

"I wasn’t too surprised because our relay had qualified for WPIALs last year, so I expected us to get qualifying time again. It’s great that we qualified in the first meet, so it’s out of the way and now we can swim without worrying about not qualifying," said Cestra.

Qualifying for WPIALs automatically entitles swimmers to go to MACs as well.

MACs is a swim tournament separate from WPIALs with lower qualifying times.

The team's next meet is at Quaker Valley, a dreaded location for swimmers familiar with it. They are known for their formidable swimmers, especially their boys team. However, Nachman is still ready to face them.

"Quaker Valley is a good team that works hard, but I think we have a great team that works harder, and if anyone has a shot of beating them, it’s us," stated Nachman.

The team will be traveling to Quaker Valley Thursday, December 20.