Ari and Ashley are both squad students that train at Moss Vale Aquatic Centre and had the opportunity to compete at state. Ari is a squad member coached by Ben Blaik and Kirrilee Bracht. He is also a part of the Moss Vale Amateur Swimming Club that ran racing meets on Friday evening throughout Terms 4 and 1. Ashely has been attending Moss Vale Aquatic Centre since the day it opened, which is now going on 6 years. She has been in our Squad program work her way up from mini to gold level in this time.
Ari has had a fantastic season of swimming. In February, he won Junior Boys Champion at the Wingecarribee District PSSA Swimming Carnival. He also deserves a massive congratulations on competing in six events at the South Coast Regional PSSA Swimming Carnival, coming 2nd in the Junior Boys 50m Butterfly in the following month.
He had a great swim and shaved 5 sec off his qualifying time to finish with a personal best of 42.62 sec. This result meant Ari qualified to compete at the NSW PSSA swimming carnival at Homebush. At the State Carnival, he had a fantastic swim getting another personal best of 39.74 sec. He finished 5th in his heat and 22nd, overall out of 39.
Also this year Ashley has been 14 years age champion at Chevalier and was under 14s girl champion at the southern highlands twilight zone. She was competing against all high schools in the southern highlands, which is amazing!
To achieve this Ashley trains up to 7 sessions a week both morning and evenings as well as competing at Moss Vale Swim Club on Friday evening, and other carnivals on the weekends.
We would like to congratulate all of our learn to swim and squad students in their amazing efforts during their carnival season. It has been an amazing effort and is thrilling to hear of all the triumphs of those who made it to state levels.
We would also like to congratulate Jessica Wray and Leo Zhu on your dedication to Moss Vale Aquatic Centre and for your brilliant swim season leading you to state.