Six Baldwin swimmers have qualified for WPIALs and will compete on Feb. 29 and March 1 at Pitt.

Senior Alayna Kercher qualified for the 500-meter freestyle. Senior Evan Stokes qualified for the 100-meter breaststroke and the 50-meter freestyle. 

Junior Spencer Maist qualified for the 100-meter backstroke. Also, the relay team, consisting of Maist, Stokes, senior Dylan Lubarski,  junior Nathaniel McWilliams, with sophomore Brayden Kuch as the alternate, qualified for the 200-meter medley relay and the 200-meter freestyle relay.

Kercher in particular made great strides at the tail end of the season to make the cut.

Kercher was not close to qualifying until the last four meets of the season, having a best time of  5 minute, 36-seconds in the 500-meter freestyle. She slowly got faster, but was still two seconds off the qualifying time after the last meet of the regular season. 

However, there is a “last chance” meet, which offers swimmers a final opportunity to get a foot in the door for WPIALs. Kercher swam a qualifying time of 5:30.35.

“I am super excited that I qualified, especially since it is my senior season. At the beginning of the season I was hoping I could qualify, but through the season I wasn’t sure I was able to do so until there were four meets left in the season,” she said. 

Continuing to prepare as WPIALs approach, Kercher will keep up her hard work. 

“I will just continue to have practice every day for two hours, and my practice will consist of a lot of yardage and working on making my turns faster,” she said.

Kercher said she feels abundantly supported by her team.

“For the last two meets we had in the season I was stressed out about qualifying, but the whole team supported me and pushed me to get the time to qualify,” she said. 

Kercher said the whole team did well overall and worked together through the tough practices. The results of the meets showed that hard work.

“I’d say we ended the season on a good note, and I am very proud of the team for doing well and sticking with it,” Kercher said.