National Catholic Championships
By: Reach for the Wall Staff
The 81st annual National Catholic Swimming & Diving Championship is being competed this weekend 1/20-1/21 at Loyola University in Baltimore, Maryland. Many schools from the DMV will compete in this prestigious event that also includes Catholic schools from Washington DC, Maryland, Virginia, Ohio, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania (Full list of teams competing). This is the first of the Championship style meets in 2018 and in last year’s event, Gonzaga captured the boys team title with Georgetown Prep taking second. On the girls side, Holy Cross, Good Counsel, and St. John’s swam and dove to spots 2, 3, and 5 respectively. This weekend we should see a strong showing from both Georgetown Prep and Gonzaga where one of those two teams will likely take the boys title. (Note: this will be the third meet where Prep and Gonzaga will face off, Gonzaga prevailed in a tri-meet in November, whereas Prep took the dual meet on Jan 10th). On the girls side, Holy Cross is poised to remain in the top three, however a strong Stone Ridge (did not compete last year), Good Counsel and St. John’s teams should also be in contention. As we’ve seen in other Championship events, teams that can place well in the relays and score in diving, will be at the top of the leaderboard. Last year we saw Holy Cross capture 139 of their 277 points from the relay and diving events! We will keep an eye out for results and update as available.