By Jake Dowling, Icon intern
Ready, get set, swim! That command starts Friday at the Bluffton Community Swimming Pool.
This year, Bluffton hosts the Western Ohio Aquatic League meet championships. The event, will bring hundreds of fans and swimmers to Bluffton for the next two days.
"Warms-up is at 7 a.m. followed by festivities at 9 a.m. and swimming beginning around 10 a.m." said Liz Diller, one of the two Bluffton swim team coaches. "Normally we have a couple thousand fans here, so it adds up pretty quickly."
Diller said the competition will have eight teams. Those teams are:
o Bluffton
o Kenton
o Wapakoneta
o Westside
o Shawnee
o Van Wert
o Ada/Lost Creek
o Sherwood
"We will have about 500 swimmers altogether, maybe even more than that," she said. "Our team has about 70."
Compared to the size of other teams, Diller says Bluffton ranks right in the middle of the pack.
"There are two teams that are way bigger than us, but we have a decently sized team."
In addition, even though Bluffton is an up and coming team, Diller says there is always competition.
"We are definitely a growing program, we have a lot of young kids, but we compete really well, she says.