Pleasant Valley Piranhas Wrapping Up Meets This Week

With 154 swimmers, this Pleasant Valley Pool swim team, the Piranhas, just could be the largest ever. On top of that, the pool's swim program has another 41 swimmers younger than 10 years old who are practicing as future up-and-comers on this summer's pre-team.

The competing swimmers, after winning Saturday's meet 262 to 162 against the Stardust pool team from Morristown, have four wins and two losses, including a loss to neighbor Bernardsville last Monday night.

The Piranhas' next scheduled meet is at home at 6 p.m. Wednesday at Pleasant Valley Pool off Valley Road, according to information from the team parents. The team will compete against Morris Plains.

That is the last individual competition. Then, this coming weekend, the different age categories, that will bring together hundreds of swimmers from multiple teams, will top off the swim team season with the "Meet of Champions," split over two days.

This year's 10 and under swimmers will compete in events at the Meet of Champions at the Bernardsville Pool off Seney Drive in Bernardsville, starting at 8:20 a.m., said parent Joanne Wachenfeld. The next day, on Sunday, the older swimmers will compete at the Chester Area Pool in Chester, also starting in the morning, according to information from the team.

Wachenfeld said she has been keeping statistics on the team since 2002, and this has been the largest swim team since, and likely ever, for Pleasant Valley Pool.

The team, which has 67 new simmers, started off its season strong with a big win against Chester.

This year's head coaches are Ridge High School alumni Amanda Wachenfeld and Tyler Gibbons.

This is Amanda Wachenfeld's third year on the coaching staff, and her 16th year on the PVP team, according to information from the team.

Wachenfeld now swims for Tufts University. She said, “We are all really excited for another great season this year. It is our largest team yet, but we feel that we have a really strong and talented group of kids.” 

Tyler Gibbons, on the coaching staff for four years, is a sophomore at Columbia University. He runs cross country and track and field at college, following a distinguished running career while at Ridge.

Gibbons has been on the PVP for 14 years. "It was great to start the season off on such a positive note, winning our meet against Chester, especially for all of the new kids on the team," Gibbons said, adding he was looking forward to a great season.

Assisting the head coaches are Sarah Spring a rising senior at Ridge High School, and Jackson Crewe, a rising junior at Ridge.

At the first Chester meet, PVP started off strong with winning the first event, the girls 100-meter relay to start off the momentum.

It was a tie score going into the breast stroke events and then PVP pulled ahead quickly by fine swims from all of the swimmers.

First place finishers were Grace Sedlazek, Samantha Sargen, Madeline West, Katie Kisker, Evan Aillo, Chrissy Clark, Kate Bradley, Connor McKeon, Devon McKeon, Mia Capizzi,  Kaitlyn Tartaglione, Anthony Capizzi, Andrew Moss, Colleen Wachenfeld, Thomas Bartlett, Rebecca Piccardi and Erin Julian.

The final score was PVP's 235 to 184 points for Chester.