compete in the Olympics. Dowd, who now lives in North Carolina, won state titles in breaststroke in both 1974 and 1975 and qualified for the 1976 Montreal Olympics, where she competed in the women’ s 200-meter breaststroke. During those days, the girls’ team practiced at the Sewickley YMCA, and sometimes at the North Park Pool.
“ We were winning state titles, and we didn’ t even have a pool,” Dowd says with a laugh.“ I remember the intensity of competing on that team. We were all very close.”
Former teammate Laurie( Potter) MacMillan agrees. She competed with the team in the mid-1970s and still holds state records in the 100-yard butterfly.
“ Swimming back then was quite a different scenario than it is today,” says MacMillan, who swam in college and has coached the high school team where she now lives in North Carolina.“ Even though we didn’ t have a pool, NA provided us with a great environment to swim in.”
Semler started coaching the team after Dowd and MacMillan had already moved on to college, but had plenty of opportunities afterward to guide future teams through multiple state championship wins. His first state championship came with the 1984 girls’ team, the same year
that the team won the National Dual Meet title. He also relishes the girls’ 1997 state title, which was the last of a seven-year run that included five state titles, as well as the 2010 boys’ state title, which was the second consecutive championship win for the boys.
“ We had a miserable first session, leaving us wondering if we could even finish in the top three teams, and they came back that evening with an amazing turnaround, leading us to a championship,” says Semler of the boys’ title.
Over the past few decades, numerous NA swimmers have qualified for the Olympic trials, and many have gone on to swim for NCAA Division I teams. Moving forward, the team’ s stream of success will be hard to topple: North Allegheny Varsity Swimming is the only one out of any WPIAL sport to have earned five consecutive wins on both girls’ and boys’ teams, says Wenzel. And the team is on its way to try to collect yet another state title; as of press time, it had just finished a perfect season with a win at North Hills High School, with the boys smashing four pool records along the way.
“ We’ re hoping for a repeat win, of course, but more than anything, we’ re always striving for excellence,” says Wenzel.“ The rest seems to take care of itself.” n
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