This year has been especially challenging for athletes on high school teams. Things have been changing constantly, and it can be hard to adapt to all these new changes being made. The Latrobe Varsity Swim Team is a great example of what it is like to have to adapt to all kinds of different changes being made from the pandemic. 

Last year, the team was planning on continuing their training into the off-season, after a great season that included a lot of improvements from the entire team. They were planning on beginning off-season lifting, which was a new idea that everyone was looking forward to. However, right before the new plans began, everything was shut down. Athletes were forced to stay home while gyms and pools were closed. Thankfully, the team was able to practice outside with new guidelines at the local Latrobe Memorial Pool. Practices continued until it got too cold, but eventually the high school pool opened for the team to practice before the season began.

With all new kinds of rules and guidelines that needed to be followed in order for practices to continue, the coaches made sure each member followed all of the rules in order to maintain their practices. However, the school was eventually closed down yet again due to a spike in cases. Once again, the team was left with no pool or gym. They knew the show must go on, so they began at-home training to keep in shape. After the amount of time sports were forced to shut down ended, they returned to the pool once again to continue their real-time training.

Once again, luck was not on their side. A very important part of the pool filtration system was broken, resulting in a dirty pool missing about a foot of water. Once again without a pool, the team began lifting at the school while they waited for approval from another high school to borrow their pool.

Saint Vincent College made available the Frank and Elizabeth Resnick pool while the senior high pool was being fixed.

With all these changes, junior Colin Spehar was determined to continue to improve no matter the circumstances. “I know things keep changing all of the sudden, but I don’t plan on letting that stop me from improving and enjoying my season,” Colin said.

The team couldn’t agree more, and they all plan on continuing to adapt to whatever changes are coming their way.