Despite the challenges faced early in its season from COVID, the Beaver Area swim season proceeded (mostly) as scheduled.

As of the publication of this article, the regular season has concluded with a total of nine in-section meets against the WPIAL division’s finest, most prestigious schools . . . and Central Valley.

The boys just barely managed to secure a winning record of 5-4, while the girls managed a record of 3-5.

Due to the cancellation of the MAC competitions this year, it was replaced by an invitational at Mars High School February 7. Beaver Area came in fourth out of eight attending schools.

It was here that the low-held Bobcat tradition of "borrowing" and bartering for the competing schools' swim caps continued, as can be seen in the picture at the end of this story.

Despite the challenges of competing and practicing during a pandemic, spirits remained high on the team throughout the season.

"It’s been a challenging season but also one of our best because of how close we all are," said sophomore Olivia Wooley.

One challenge proved to be insurmountable to most of the team, however, and that was the changes made to WPIAL qualifying times. In order to reduce the number of people competing in WPIALs at the University of Pittsburgh swimming pool and maintain social distancing, the already difficult cut-off times to go to WPIALs were further reduced, preventing most of the team from even coming close to qualifying.

Yet, according to sophomore Brandon Osborne, the more competitive qualifying times became a motivator to swim even faster.

"Although no one [qualified], I believe it was a great motivator for us all this season as it made us fight for our times and to do our best," Osborne stated.

The team attended an unofficial "last ditch" meet against North Catholic February 19, last ditch being in reference to the final opportunity to qualify for WPIALs. The meet was arranged between Beaver Area and North Catholic as their scheduled December meet was cancelled due to COVID exposures on both teams. Despite everyone's best efforts, no one was able to make the WPIALs cut.

However, on the brighter side of things, no one will have to endure the few weeks of intense pre-WPIAL practice this year, with everyone getting a much-deserved rest.