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North Catholic's Maggie Foley won the WPIAL Class 2A diving title last year as a freshman.
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North Catholic's Maggie Foley trying to maintain diving excellence

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North Catholic's Maggie Foley trying to maintain diving excellence

Maggie Foley had the world in front of her last year when, as a freshman, she became the first female diver from North Catholic to win a WPIAL Class 2A title.

She was also the top seed heading into the state championships at Bucknell University’s Kinney Natatorium and, with teammate Kyle Maziarz, had the chance to become the first twosome from the same school in either classification to sweep the boys and girls events in the same year.

It never materialized.

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Instead came the first of many COVID-19 shutdowns; the one that postponed and eventually canceled the Class 2A state finals.

What followed then was news that her training ground at the University of Pittsburgh was shut down to anyone but Pitt students. The student diving program has been a proving ground for almost every WPIAL contender over the past 30 years.

“It’s been a nightmare wrapped in another nightmare,” Foley said. “Basically, over the summer, Pitt had the shutdown because of NCAA rules. Without having a pool, it’s just been very hard trying to find places that are open and letting me get some pool time, so we’ve been driving around late nights for practices. It’s been crazy.”

With nearly all avenues shut down, Foley thought outside the box.

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And pretty much out of the state.

“I’ve been going out near Ohio where there are some local places out there who have had pools open. I have a new coach from out there, so that’s what we’re working with as of right now until we find a better solution,” Foley said. “If we would go to a lockdown, then they would go into a lockdown, so that would create a whole new problem, so we’re just holding our breath that nothing goes too wrong, too quickly.”

Swimmers and coaches have gone through great pains this season trying to adhere to some semblance of regimentation and routine in an effort to maintain tried and true methods of preparation for the WPIAL and PIAA meets. But for a diver, who has to have a good portion of the pool cleared for safety reasons, it can be nightmarish.

Even with everything going on, Foley only has three weeks remaining to prepare for the WPIAL Class 2A finals, which have moved from South Park to North Allegheny.

“I was thinking about that and I kind of blinked and went, ‘Oh my gosh, we’re already back here.’ It just feels like yesterday we were put into shutdown and states was canceled,” Foley said. “I did get to, thankfully, get some practicing and clean up some of my skills and, I don’t know, I feel more confident in myself as a diver going into it. I’m not worried about anyone else.”

Despite all the difficulties, including finding meets where she could dive — another problem with smaller schools — she came into the week as the top qualifier for the WPIAL finals with a score of 272.10, 2.78 points better than Central Valley senior Alexa Gonczi, who was the third-place finisher a year ago.

Still, with everything going on and the lack of full-time training, Foley admits there won’t be many changes in her 11-dive slate from last year. Without having intense coaching, it will be a lot harder to install new dives and have them ready to go in such a short amount of time.

“I think from last year to this year, I’ve gained a lot of confidence in myself as a person, which I think is going to help me a lot,” Foley said. “I know if I stick with the dives I know how to do and hopefully do them better than last year, I think I can walk away with a pretty good score.”

Qualifying field shrinks

After months of wondering what might be, the WPIAL made it official at its swimming committee meeting Wednesday that it will not hold the championship meet at Pitt’s Trees Pool.

They’ve figured out the when, but the where is still up in the air.

“We have a couple of schools that submitted a proposal to host the meet,” committee chairman Jamie Morton said. “We’ll go back to them and tell them that this is what the committee wants to do and can you accommodate it and, once they agree, we’ll put that information out in the next couple of days.”

As in previous years, the WPIAL will hold its championships over two days, on March 6-7, but the format will be changed.

Normally there is one classification with boys and girls alternating events in the morning and the other class doing the same in the afternoon with the first day’s session ending with the 200-yard freestyle relay and the second day opening with the 100 freestyle. This year, Class 2A will be on the Saturday with the girls timed finals in all events the morning and the boys to follow, while Class 3A will take place on the Sunday following the same routine.

“We’re going to mirror what the state is doing and run an entire meet in the morning with the girls and an afternoon/evening session with the boys,” Morton said. “We’ll repeat that over two days with the two classifications.”

What the WPIAL is also attempting to do is limit the number of competitors in each event to 16 participants for individuals and 12 for relays. With the increased difficulty in qualifying times, it will be harder for anyone to reach the meet standard.

For example, last year, in the Class 3A 200-yard medley relay — the opening event of the meet — there were 22 girls teams and 27 boys, which adds up to 196 competitors just for that event.

To that end, the WPIAL tightened the qualifying time standards for all events last week.

As of Monday, there were only five girls 200 medley relay teams that had made the standard of 1:51.50 and five boys teams that hit the time of 1:40.00.

Coming into the week for the Class 3A girls, only three spots in the 200 freestyle relay, five in the 200 medley relay and two in the 400 freestyle relay had been clinched, while the boys in the highest classification had seven 200 freestyle relay places, five in the 200 medley relay and three 400 freestyle relay slots locked up.

There have also been decreases in the number of qualifiers across the board in all individual events in both classifications, which could keep things manageable moving forward.

If there are more than 16 individual or 12 relay automatic qualifiers — those who reach the new WPIAL standard and opt to swim in that event — then more heats may be added. Right now, the district is looking at two eight-person individual heats and three four-team relays.

Conversely, if fewer than 16 individuals or 12 relays reach the qualifying standard, the next best times will be taken to fill out the field. So if there are only nine individuals who meet the 5:15.00 in the 500 freestyle, the next seven best times will be added to the meet so there are no fewer than 16 entrants in the event.

Swimmers only have until Feb. 20 to get a seed time.

First Published: February 4, 2021, 4:45 p.m.

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North Catholic's Maggie Foley won the WPIAL Class 2A diving title last year as a freshman.  (Photo submitted)
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