Norwin High School Varsity Swim’s season has just begun, but it’s looking to be an exciting one. First-year head coach Katherine Bernardi has her team putting in 110% effort, despite some insuperable issues holding the team back.
On December 3rd, both the Boys and Girls teams opened their seasons with a meet in Gateway. The Girls Swim team came just short, losing 90-91, with the Boys Swim team also losing 104-70. In their second match, another away meet in Central Catholic, the girls secured their first win of the season 80-69, while the boys fell to 0-2 with an 87-76 loss. Then, the teams had their first home meet against Elizabeth Forward on Monday, Dec. 16. The boys and girls teams achieved a home victory, with the boys winning 85-79 and the girls winning 92-75.
Although it’s still early, this tumultuous start to the season for both teams has brought light to an issue Norwin’s swim program faces when it comes to their chances in meets. The team does not have a diving program, and therefore, automatically forfeits the diving points that other schools earn by having divers present at meets. Additionally, due to lingering issues caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Norwin swim’s feeder program, Norwin Aqua Club, has been struggling with numbers and membership enrollments.
These struggles for the Aqua Club have left the team in a rough spot when it comes to recruiting swimmers. Due to these factors, Norwin lacks the same amount of swimmers as their opponents in many of their meets, which leads to the team being at an immediate disadvantage.
Coach Bernardi hopes that the team will be able to ignore these roadblocks.
“Our goal is twofold- we’re trying to get as many of our swimmers to make WPIAL cuts as we can, and we’re trying to make teams nervous,” said Bernardi. So far, six students have made the time in their event needed to qualify for individual WPIAL competition. These students include Tyler Turgeon, Aiden Samuels, Liam Samuels, Amber Klingensmith, Hanna Klingensmith, and Kismet Juart.
Despite their initial struggles, the chemistry of Norwin’s swimmers is still strong.
“We cheer for each other on all of our events,” said senior swimmer Tyler Turgeon, “congratulate people no matter how they swim, and we always have fun after the meet. We go out to get food often.”
Turgeon is a long-tenured member of the Norwin Swim team, and is one of their yearly top performers, qualifying for WPIAL competition in multiple events last season. Although swimming is technically an individual sport, Norwin’s team makes a serious effort to stay as unified as possible.
“Even though we’re a fairly small team, I think we have a very, very strong team this year and I think we’re gonna see a lot of people getting best times in pretty much everything and do better than we ever have,” said Turgeon.
Norwin Swim will continue to embrace their team spirit with an inaugural Blue & Gold intrasquad swim competition and a breakfast and white elephant gift on December 28th.
