The last time our Salesianum swim team lost a meet, it was January 2019. Immediately after a season of being undefeated from late 2019 to early 2020, COVID-19 unexpectedly struck and threw away any predictions for the next season. At first, it seemed like sports were out of the question as the global medical community tried to figure out what COVID was and exactly how it spread. However, as time went on, the world slowly made progress and figured out how to slow down the spread enough that sports could continue.

But how would swimming work with mask wearing? Being outside without a mask is one thing, but having a massive number of swimmers in a small pool without masks seemed to be a disaster waiting to happen. Right before the season began, the DIAA announced the official rules for swimming during COVID. Every swimmer has to bring a plastic bag with them along with their mask. Right before their event is set to go off, they take off their mask, put it in their bag, drop the bag on the floor, and get on the block to dive in. Additionally, the size of each team was limited to somewhere between 10-20 people, depending on the size of the pool.

With the rules in place, Sallies could finally start swimming again. In order, the team swam against: Appoquinimink, Mt. Pleasant, Newark Charter, St. Mark’s, Wilmington Charter, DMA, Tower Hill, Conrad, St. Mark’s (again), and Tower Hill (again). Sallies won all of these meets, with the closest score being 92-72 against Tower Hill the second time. The season just ended on Sunday with the official state championships in Sussex. After a long meet, the swim team continued their state championship winning streak. On top of this victory, the team of Tommy Janton, Kyle Skelly, Brandon Burke, and Alec Elder broke a state record for the 400 freestyle relay that was set in 2001 by the Salesianum team of Mike McCreary, Kyle Bull, Rory Connell, and Dan Klee. This new record was a time of 3:09.01, while the original record was 3:10.63. Congratulations to them and the entire Salesianum swim team!