Step up, take your marks, go! It’s swim season!

With the 53rd Beaver Area swim season underway, our Bobcat swimmers and divers are excited for the upcoming meets.

The team has reached a record number of participants for the first time since COVID, and with 30 official team members, the swim team is growing, which means new goals are in sight.

The girls have 12 team members, and the boys have 18; both teams are expecting a winning season. In order to do this, both teams will have to win at least six of their 11 meets. In swimming, the boys and girls teams are entirely separate with different time standards, scores, and sometimes meets.

The boys were a section championship favorite heading into the season (next to Blackhawk and West Allegheny), but after receiving their schedule, the team now believes that this goal may be overly ambitious.

The team is led by head coach Marc Williams in his seventh year of coaching, assistant coach Shane Landy in his second season, and new diving coach Becca Kirby in her first season.

Most Beaver County teams were excited about the Bobcats’ new pool last year and elected to travel to Beaver Area in the hopes of fast swims. Per WPIAL rules, this now means that the Bobcats have to travel this season to all of the schools that wanted to try out the new pool last year.

That means the team will be away at seven of their meets, and four of the seven meets do not have a diving board which is a disadvantage for the Bobcats. Beaver Area boasts nine divers, six of whom will compete in meets.

The start of the season also marks the swim team captain elections. There are two girls captains, two boys captains, and a diving captain.

Senior Haley O’Brien was chosen as the diving captain. O’Brien dove both her freshman and sophomore years but took a break last year to be the school mascot. She hopes to lead the very new diving team and become a MAC qualifier herself.

For the girls, junior Cora Rodgers and senior Ava Sutter were elected captains.

Rodgers was a MAC qualifier in both her freshman and sophomore years, and this year she is going to be a pivotal part of the girls’ relay team in their hopes of attending the WPIAL championships.

Sutter is a three-time MAC qualifier, WPIAL individual event qualifier, and school record holder. She is hoping to be the speed to compliment the drive that the girls already have.

Rodgers explained that “The girls’ team has big goals for the season; it’s been five years since we’ve sent a relay to WPIALs, and we want it more than ever. We’ve been practicing more than we ever have, and our participation in practices has been up. We are going for the freestyle relay, and it will come down to less than a second; it’s up to just one race.”

The boys had numerous upperclassmen who were eligible to be captains, but in the end junior Aden Prence and senior Liam Denny were elected.

Prence was a first-time MAC qualifier last year and is now the boys’ main breaststroker.

Denny is hoping to receive his first MAC cut this year in a freestyle event.

To start the season, the first day of mandatory training for the Bobcats was November 17. With less than a month to prepare before their first meet, the Bobcats were sent scrambling to teach new team members relay exchanges, new strokes, and drills.

Nonetheless, the team made time to host their very first scrimmage, a mock meet held at home against Central Valley December 3.

Central Valley has a deal with Beaver Area where the teams share the pool but practice at different times.

The meet was a glorified practice that allowed new team members to learn event order, diving cheers, and overall sportsmanship and pool etiquette.

Since there was no scoring, returning members were put in some of their most unexpected (and worst) events because when the races count, the swimmers will be locked into their best events.

The Bobcats were scheduled to compete at three meets in December, but the season had some unexpected challenges.

The December 10 match against Seton LaSalle was cancelled due to the Rebels not having enough numbers.

The next meet was scheduled for December 12 against Deer Lakes but was moved to December 11 due to a lack of officials.

Coach Williams remarked that “this was the most interesting meet I have ever coached; it even tops when the fire alarm went off during one of my races.”

To begin, a Deer Lakes diver smashed his face off of the side of the pool and was unable to finish his dives. He scraped his nose and chin on the pool wall after pushing off the pool bottom.

On the swimming side the meet started like any other . . . until the 200 yard individual medleys.

In every high school meet the girls swim the event directly before the boys, so when the boys finished a Deer Lakes swimmer got sick three times: in the water, in the filtration and gutter system at the pool’s edge, and then onto the pool deck. This was the start of the madness.

The Deer Lakes coach began yelling at the student to hide the vomit but he was not able to.

The officials were not notified of the incident until about a minute later. This meant that there was plenty of time to send the girls’ heat of the 50 yard freestyle into the now contaminated pool.

The girls dove in and swam their 30 second race while the coaches and officials were scrambling to get people out of the pool because of the sickness.

Once things slightly calmed, it was announced that the meet would be postponed until the school’s maintenance staff could treat the water. There is only one man at Beaver Area High School able to tend to the pool’s chlorine levels, and he was not at the meet or school.

After an hour and once the chlorine was brought up and the jets blown, the meet was officially back on.

The team was able to do the 100 yard butterfly, 100 yard freestyle, and 500 yard freestyle before once again the pool was closed.

This time a Beaver Area swimmer had a profuse bloody nose during the 500 yard freestyle and chose to finish his race.

Prence said, “Things didn’t go as planned, but our rookies did great.”

Both the Bobcat boys and girls were leading by over 50 points, but the meet will now have to go to the WPIAL rules committee. The times of the meet will count but the score may have to end in a tie. This outcome will especially affect the Bobcats’ hopes for a winning season.

Denny explained that “there were way too many bodily fluids at this meet.”

The meet's notable races included junior Jude Lovra’s 30 second lead in the 500 yard freestyle and his first time finishing under six minutes.

Sophomore Ava Harden won both of her individual events in the 200 yard Individual Medley and 100 yard freestyle, and sophomore Daniel Wang crushed his competition in the men’s 100 yard butterfly.

Sutter won both the 50 and 100 yard freestyle by a large margin as well as Rodgers winning the 200 and 500 yard freestyle for the girls.

December 19 (CHK day) the boys team will race Cornell while the girls will race both Cornell and Ellis Academy at home.

Following these meets, the team will head into their holiday break training. During the break the team will reach their peak yardage and will be swimming up to four miles a day.

Check the next BASD ECHO for coverage on this season's swim meets.