The COED swimming and diving team split wins the evening of Thursday, Jan. 5 at its home meet vs South Fayette. 

The boys team was victorious with a 91-80 score, and the girls team lost a good fight with a score of 102-81.

Starting off with diving, both the boys and girls had many placewinners.

On the girls side, junior Ella Devine earned third place and senior Grace DeMira was close behind obtaining fourth place.

The boys diving team also made a splash with seniors Jacob Zeminski capturing second, Cody Hendrych-Bondra placing fourth, and Lucas Varley coming in fifth.

Moving on to the swimming portion.

In the girls 200-yard medley relay, the A-team consisting of juniors Emma Burke and Kaitlyn Becker, senior Braleigh Anderson, and sophomore Callahan Edner, took second place with a time of 2:03.86, less than a second behind South Fayette’s A-team.

The boys 200-yard medley team including sophomores Trent Powell and Luke Kallaur, and juniors Luke Myers and Nathan Stutzman absolutely crushed the competition finishing 10 seconds before South Fayette’s A relay with a time of 1:44.17. This time gave them a first place which put them in the lead early in the meet.

Throughout the entirety of the first half of the meet, there were some impressive swims.

The girls were stacking up points left and right with Cally Edner placing second in the 200-yard freestyle and senior Emily Morian grabbing second in the 200 IM.

On the boys side, Trent Powell,  Nathan Stutzman, and Luke Myers tore it up! Powell earned first place in the 200-yard IM and so did Stutzman in his 50-yard freestyle. Myers came in close behind Powell, earning second in the 200-yard IM.

Trent Powell, one of the usual lead scorers of the team, said that he goes into his meets with the mindset that persistence is key. He said, “You learn from both losing and winning. You learn how to keep going.”

At the halfway point of the meet, the girls were sadly behind 44-33, but the boys were striding ahead at 48-30. 

Bethel absolutely crushed the 100-yard fly. Cally Edner and sophomore Luke Kallaur came in first with times of 1:03.36 and 57.57 respectively, while Nathan Stutzman and Kaitlyn Becker finished it off earning second and third place.

Cally Edner gave some input on how she felt after her win saying, “I didn’t realize I was first until I looked at the board. We’ve all put in hard work and today it really showed.”

Later on, Emma Burke won the 100 backstroke with a time of 1:07.24 and freshman Sam Hoppe and sophomore Brady McKiernan came in second and third in their 500 free.

Wrapping up the meet, and ending it with a bang, the girls crushed the 400 free relay earning first, second, and third, with their A, B, and C relays.

Though only the boys side was victorious, there were countless great swims from both sides of the team that our Black Hawks are proud of.

The team next hosts Seneca Valley on Jan. 12.  Go Hawks!