Tioga County Sports ReportOWEGO — Heavy graduation losses in 2019 and 2020 left the Owego girls swimming and diving team trying to rebuild. The process has been gradual, but the River Hawks have shown progress during that time.
This season, new head coach Summer Pierce has witnessed a nice jump in those numbers.
“We have 17 girls signed up, which last year, they had 10, so very good so far,” she said of the numbers.
Pierce, a record-setting swimmer for the local youth and high school teams, will be working with a variety of talent this season.
“We are all across the board with experience levels,” she said. “We have some girls that still need to learn how to swim all four strokes, and then we have some girls that will be pushing the state cut.”
Pierce, who also set records at Division I UMass, will be putting her charges to the test during the preseason.
“I want to get as many yards in as I can this week,” she said. “I plan on tiring them out quite a bit, just get them into swimming. A lot of them have been swimming this summer, but a lot of us have not been, so just getting them back in the pool, throwing as many yards at them as I can.”
Some of the team members were working out during the off-season, which should help prepare them for the upcoming season.
“There's a club swim team at Maine-Endwell that I know some of them had practiced at before I started practice this year, but I don't believe they swam in any meets,” Pierce said.
Several of the Owego swimmers have reasons to be motivated this fall.
Among them are junior Sophia Lee, a transfer from Waverly last season, and sophomore Ava Murphy. Lee will defend her Section IV Class B 100-yard backstroke title while Murphy placed in the top three in two events at sectionals. The River Hawks reached the “A” finals in three other individual events and also placed in a trio of relays.
“I don't want to come in with expectations for myself necessarily, but I know the girls have a lot of expectations for the team. They talked about it yesterday,” Pierce said. “They want to win more dual meets. Last year, the record was 4-6, and this year they want to win more, and I think they can. Now that we have the numbers too, I think we should be at least 50 percent in our record this year.”
One event in which Owego is expected to score a lot of team points is diving with senior Kaelyn Katchuk and freshman Ayla Young, both of whom have been diving for Owego since the seventh grade.
A three-time state medalist, Katchuk will seek an unprecedented fifth Section IV Class B diving title. The holder of numerous STAC and Section IV records, she has also won 31 consecutive dual meet diving competitions dating back to October 2019.
Owego opens the season Sept. 5 with a STAC dual meet at Windsor then competes in the Wolverine invitational at Waverly Sept. 7.
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PHOTOS BY TIM TAYLOR.
