The 2024-2025 season has been a challenging one for Trinity’s swim team, but the Shamrocks have proven they’re up to the task and willing to jump through the hurdles.
As the postseason looms with Mid-Penn and District 3 championships in February, the team is surging with new personal bests nearly every time they enter the pool. And this season, those pools have been solely in opposing waters.
Late last summer, Trinity’s home pool, Keystone Aquatics in Carlisle, closed unexpectedly, and the Shamrocks had to pivot for a new site to hold practices and home meets.
Fortunately, East Pennsboro High School stepped up and opened its pool to the ’Rocks for practices. Their competition, though, has been a series of meets on the road without a home pool. While that could spell challenging waters for any high school team, Trinity has found a silver lining.
“I would say our team has really bonded this year as we’re traveling and being on the roads for our meets. Everyone was socializing on the bus, really getting to know one another more than we would have otherwise,” said senior Montana Mulrov.
“This season, for me, was mainly about having fun and leaving it all out there. I’m not sure if I’ll swim in college yet, so if this is my last year I want to just leave it all out there and have the best experience,” she said.
Mulrov and head coach Ben Slate spoke with The Witness prior to a meet against Northern York and James Buchanan at the home of the Polar Bears on a frigid January 23. Junior Josiah Garber led the way in overall competition for the boys that night; freshman Ava Hartle paced the girls for Trinity and scored in the top five overall.
Trinity placed second behind Northern York in both girls’ and boys’ competition, scoring 37.3 and 61.1, respectively.
Coach Slate said this season has been one of discipline, especially with practices that start at 8 p.m. and can knock student-athletes’ schedules off kilter with after-school downtime instead of hitting the pool.
“One of the challenges we face is that our practice time is late in the day, so instead of getting out of school and going straight to practice, they have that break in between, so they have to be more intentional about how they use their time,” he said. “It means sometimes it’s later at night and we’re just starting practice so they have to blast music and find ways to get excited and ready. I must say, they’ve done a great job of doing that, and we have more games and fun to help keep them ready to go.”
“We’re extremely grateful to the administration at East Penn and to our administration at Trinity for working out an opportunity for us to practice,” Slate said.
Now in his second year as head coach at Trinity, Slate is prepping the Shamrocks for postseason competition; Mid-Penns loom the first weekend in February, with District 3 Championships to close out the month. Trinity returns two of its District 3 Class 2A boys’ 200-yard medley foursome in Josiah and Timmy Garber, joined now by Jack Kozlowski and Matt White after graduating James Gaudion and Max Jones last year.
While improving personal bests and aiming for the medals stand is undoubtedly in the Shamrocks’ sights, coach Slate is focused on making sure his students are enjoying the sport.
“The first thing I look for with my team is that they enjoy the sport,” he said. “I’ve seen a lot of kids walk away from sports because they’re burned out. At the end of the day, the thing they’re going to take away from this the most is that they enjoy the experience. That doesn’t mean they don’t work hard, it does mean they aren’t disciplined, it doesn’t mean they don’t have goals. It means being disciplined and still having fun. On top of that, we have times we want to shave off, and if we can get them to drop times and go faster, they’ll be happy and I’ll be happy.”
(Photos by Jen Reed, The Catholic Witness.)
By Jen Reed, The Catholic Witness
