Swimming vagabonds
SLIPPERY ROCK — Baily Trettel finds ways to keep her mind occupied during the two-hour, round-trip ride to swimming practice each day.
“At first, it seemed so long,” Trettel said of the journey from her home in Slippery Rock to Deer Lakes High School, where she practices with her club swimming team, Racer X Aquatics. “Now that I've gotten used to it, it doesn't seem that long.”
Trettel, along with Josie Reott and Sydney Reott, are swimmers without a home.
Moniteau students, the trio don't have a high school team to call their own, so they have become vagabonds.
The Reott's get their swimming in with the Butler YMCA team.
Trettel's journey is much longer and much more arduous.
“It's totally different than what kids do who are on a team,” said Amy Trettel, Baily's mother. “Kids who are on a team compete in 10, 12, 14 meets during the season.”
Baily has competed in two meets this season.
That will change, though, this weekend as Baily Trettel and Josie and Sydney Reott compete in the District Class AA Swimming Championships Friday and Saturday at Clearfield High School.
Trettel, a sophomore, is seeded first in the 100-yard butterfly and second in the 100 backstroke.
Josie Reott, a senior, is seeded second in the 100 breastroke and sixth in the 100 freestyle and Sydney Reott, a sophomore, is seeded sixth on the 100 backstroke and ninth in the 100 freestyle.
For Josie Reott, having a chance to compete in Moniteau school colors means the world to her.
It's sometimes hard for her, she said, to not have a high school team that competes.
“It's difficult to see the close-knit bonds of other teams. They really work together to encourage each other to do their best,” Josie Reott said. “It's hard that the only other swimmer who can be that for me and my sister is Baily. I love being one of the only people from Moniteau to swim.”
So does Trettel, who doesn't even see her two teammates during the day since she started attending cyber school to make the traveling for swimming easier.
She said her club teammates have pushed her and helped her make her run to the district meet.
“I'm really excited about (the District 9 meet),” Trettel said. “It's been a goal of mine for a really long time to make the state meet.”
Trettel began swimming when she was nine.
But it didn't come easily to her.
“I wasn't very good at it at first,” she said, chuckling. “I was really bad.”
But all that changed when she turned 12 and switched teams. By age 13, her skills in the pool had improved markedly and kindled her love of the sport.
“It definitely did,” Trettel said. “I'm more dedicated than I ever was before.”
