The girls’ and boys’ swim teams dove their way into their 2024-2025 season with determination, enthusiasm and passion. Their season runs for 14 weeks from the end of November to the middle of February, with hopes of qualifying for the WPIAL championships in the first week of March and State championships in the middle of March. They hope to end the season by exceeding their goals and expectations for the team and individually.
Of the 12 girls on the team, Senior Caroline Miller leads as the captain of the girls’ team, along with Senior Corbin Likar as the captain for the boys’ team. While currently out with an injury, Senior Matthew Hartley is the third senior on the team.
The teams have practice every weekday from 3:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., and meet on Saturdays from 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. On two of those days they lift weights in the Performance Center. The team is coed and practices together at Trinity Middle School’s pool. When they have swim dual meets they usually last around two hours, though their invitational meets can last from four to five hours. Event scoring goes from first place to fifth and a swimmer can score one to six points depending on their placement. For relay scoring the placement is first, second and third. At the end of the meet they tally up a final boys’ score and a final girls’ score for a team score; additionally, individuals are scored based on how they placed.
One of the Trinity girls’ swimmers, Sophomore Izzy Likar, who has been swimming since she was two years old, said, “The meets are exciting and fun, especially when you drop time.”
Sophomore Lucas Dzikowski says he has “been swimming for nine years, [and has] been on the Trinity team for four years.”
For people who are thinking of joining swimming but aren’t quite sure what it is about, competitive swimming teaches athletes how to swim fast using different strokes.
Likar said that her favorite part of being on the team is “hanging out with friends” while Dzikowski said “competing.”
Over the past three years, Coach Carla Hartley, Coach Brit Galik and Coach Brian Day have been working to rebuild the swimming program by improving the middle school swim team. They also started a club team for eight to 17-year-olds to swim all year long. Trinity also renovated the pool at the middle school to create a beautiful facility that the team is always proud to call home.
Coach Day has been coaching at Trinity for three years now and has coached swim for 40 years in total.
Day’s favorite part about coaching the team is “Seeing the excitement in the eyes of swimmers when they improve!”
Coaching the team may be fun but they still have to worry about being better than other schools. Their biggest rival is Canon Mac. Canon Mac is not in their section but they still swim against them due to a ten meet minimum requirement. The in-section rivals are either Elizabeth Forward or Ringgold, with home meets set to be on February 4, 2025, and February 6, 2025.
Day hopes more team members will qualify for WPIAL’s in the upcoming meets, but also sets a goal for the girls’ “to also compete for section championship.”
So far, the girls’ team has a record of 2-0, giving them the chance to receive the title of section champions if their winning streak continues. Their next section meet is away on January 30, 2025, against Uniontown at 6:00 p.m.
The team gets to share many big moments together and some of their biggest moments are getting the chance to celebrate their victories, as well as creating special bonds with teammates.
