Swimming
Favorite athlete: Serena Williams
Favorite team: Philadelphia Eagles
Favorite memory competing in sports: Winning the state championship in the 200 Medley Relay with my best friends during my sophomore year
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: One time I was swimming an IM and my goggles came off and I pushed off into the lane next to mine from back to breast with someone else swimming there.
Music on playlist: Rihanna, Tate McRae, Ariana Grande
Future plans: Swimming D1 at the University of Delaware and majoring in Finance
Words to live by: “Always believe in yourself and don’t overthink.”
One goal before turning 30: Go skydiving and visit the Great Barrier Reef
One thing people don’t know about me: I’ve spent an unreasonable amount of time just sitting in my parked car after practice. I just love being in the car.
By Craig Ostroff
It feels surreal for Olivia Auwarter to think about the fact that in less than two months, her senior swim season will be over.
Because for the Upper Dublin senior captain, it won’t simply close the book on her high school athletic career. As a member of a 17-member senior class on the Flying Cardinals’ girls’ swimming team, it will mark the last time this group will compete together.
“I’ve been swimming with the same people since I was 8 years old,” Auwarter said. “We’re all best friends – we’re basically sisters. We spend 12 hours a day together. We’re there for each other, we push each other. It’s so strange to think that we’re coming to the end of that.”
Of course, Auwarter and her classmates and teammates have plenty to accomplish before hanging up their swim caps and goggles at UD. The senior class is on the verge of completing a remarkable feat of having never lost a dual meet in their four years at Upper Dublin. Then there are leagues and districts before the defending Class 3A State Champions look to defend their title and make it two in a row.
Such lofty goals are standard for Upper Dublin girls’ swimming, which is among the most successful area high school programs in any sport. And the chance to add to the legacy is something that inspires the athletes.
“We can look across all the banners that surround our pool, there’s so much history and it’s so cool to be a part of it and to create new history for the team,” Auwarter said. “We use it as motivation to do our best, to uphold the legacy of what Upper Dublin has done over the years.”
And while all of that success has been the result of so many athletes making so many contributions, Auwarter has found a way to stand out with her dedication and abilities in the water as well as her leadership and demeanor out of the pool.
“Everyone realizes what she means to the team, the experience that she has, the calm that she brings to the team – that’s why she was voted a captain,” said UD girls’ swimming coach Brandon Pierce. “She is someone with so much experience, the younger kids see it and see how she handles herself in those big moments. She brings confidence to our team.
“We have 17 seniors on this team. There are a lot of people in a leadership role, but you can definitely see that she has that leadership role of the leadership roles. She sets the tone for the team. She’s also a very vocal person. She’s always cheering on her teammates on the deck. And people can see how much she supports her teammates and then goes out and handles her business.”
And when she’s in the pool, Auwarter is all business. A four-year varsity swimmer, Auwarter has earned First Team All Liberty Division honors in each of her first three years and All District One honors as a sophomore and junior.
At the State level, Auwarter finished 13th in the B Final in the 200 IM as a freshman and earned Honorable Mention All State distinction. As a sophomore, she finished fifth in the A Final in the 200 IM, eighth in the 100 fly, second in the 400 free relay and was part of the gold medal-winning 200 medley relay team. Last season, Auwarter continued racking up All State honors with a second-place finish as part of both the 200 medley relay and 400 free relay, third place in the 200 IM and seventh place in the 100 back.
Understandably, she describes the gold medal relay team – consisting of all sophomores – as one of her proudest achievements in the pool.
“That moment meant everything to me,” said Auwarter, who swam the butterfly in the third leg of the relay. “We were the underdogs going in. We were kind of out of the picture for most of the year, but as the season went on, we realized we might have a real chance. Right before the race, we were so … I don’t even know a word that means more than ‘motivated’ ... and excited and we went after it and we won it.”
Having tasted gold both as part of a relay and as a team, Auwarter admits she’s got her eye on the State Title in the 200 IM this year, though when discussing her hopes for States, her primary focus is on the team title and the relays.
Achieving all those goals will take a lot of work and dedication, but for Auwarter, it would mark the culmination of this chapter of her athletic journey, one that began a decade ago.
Even as an elementary school swimmer at the club level, Auwarter showed the potential she would develop over the years.
“I’ve coached Olivia since she was maybe 8 or 9 years old,” Pierce said. “What you see from her now, you could see she possessed that even back then. She had goals and she knew what she wanted to do and had a pretty good idea what it would take to get to where she wanted.”
While Auwarter played lacrosse, soccer, and baseball as a youngster, swimming was always her passion. By age 10, she said she knew she wanted to swim in high school and at a Division One college. And if she had any doubts about swimming being her first love, they were quelled after her experience at Junior Olympics in 2018. The regional competition held in York, PA, opened a new world of competition … and maybe more importantly, of swag.
“When me and my friends got our jackets, our JO jackets with all our events listed on our sleeves … we were so happy,” Auwarter said with a laugh. “But Junior Olympics were pretty scary, too. I was never the biggest kid, and I’m still not. Everyone just seemed so much bigger. I was so nervous, but we just went in and tried to swim our best. I’m still swimming with some of the girls I swam with there. It’s so cool to see how we’ve grown.”
Part of that growth has been working on all four strokes. While many swimmers narrow their focus, Auwarter has always worked hard on all four strokes, with the butterfly being her favorite. Of course, it’s key to be as proficient as possible in all four strokes as a top-level individual medley swimmer, but it also has allowed Auwarter to break up the monotony of concentrating on a single discipline day after day and year after year.
“My dad was the one who made me focus on each stroke and made me swim every event, even if I wasn’t good at it, and I’m so grateful for it,” she said. “It makes practice a lot more fun when I get to practice them.”
It also allows the Cardinals to utilize her as a Swiss Army knife of sorts, slotting her into various races where needed, and knowing she’ll always get the job done.
“We’ve watched her grow, and this year, she’s just feeling like she can do anything,” said Cardinals’ assistant coach Pat Redican. “And she seeks out those opportunities. There was a challenge we presented to her to qualify for districts in every event she swims. She loves that challenge, loves to be part of that. Anything we ask her to swim, it’s always, ‘Yeah, let’s do it.’”
Pierce added, “When she swims in her ‘off events’ – if we don’t need her to swim her best events – she doesn’t swim them like they’re her off events, she’s attacking everything with the desire to never lose.”
For as hardworking and dedicated as Auwarter is, she has always prided herself on being very social and friendly as well, and that’s been critical in her role as a captain. Underclassmen on the team have to deal with breaking into a social circle dominated by a large senior class that has been together for nearly a decade, and also face potentially being intimidated by the more dedicated and talented veterans on the team.
For Auwarter, being social isn’t just an important part of being a captain. It’s an important part of who she is.
“I feel like that just comes naturally for me. I’ve always been that way,” she said. “I’m very focused and determined on my goals, but I don’t want my teammates to think of me as a captain. I want them to think of me as a friend. I’m not interested in them just as swimmers. I want to get to know them and be friends with everyone.
“We always have a blast at practice and at meets. We make them so much fun. And you have to do that. You have to get up in the mornings together and at night and afternoon practices, so it helps so much to make it more social and more inviting and fun for everyone.”
“I know we’ve in the past had some girls that were captains who were some of our best swimmers, and sometimes that success maybe scared some of the younger girls – they were maybe scared off by the intensity of the work ethic and almost afraid to approach them,” Pierce said. “That’s never been the case with Olivia. She’s done a great job of finding a nice balance of working hard and also showing her lighter side when they’re on deck. She has a very approachable vibe to her.”
Among those underclassmen is Auwarter’s sister Alyssa, a junior who has established herself as a valuable member of the team as well.
“There are times where a younger sibling can be thought to be in the older one’s shadow, but Alyssa has found success of her own,” Redican said. “And Olivia loves the fact that her sister has found success. Olivia is Alyssa’s biggest fan. When Alyssa is on the blocks, Olivia is out there cheering her on and always proud of her. And Alyssa has seen Olivia have success, and that’s been a great motivator for her.”
“Alyssa has definitely proven herself, I don’t feel like she’s ever been in my shadow, and I don’t think she feels that way, either,” the elder Auwarter said. “My sister is my best friend, we get along so well, and she’s doing amazing this season.
“We both motivate each other. When one of us doesn’t want to go to morning practice, we force each other to get up and we hold each other accountable.”
•••
Being versatile isn’t just important to Auwarter in terms of swimming. She’s also quite adept at balancing athletics and academics. She’s taking AP Biology and AP Statistics as well as Honors classes in English, Marketing, and History.
Her favorite class this year, though, might come as a bit of a surprise, and serves as another glimpse into how many different interests and passions Auwarter has.
“My favorite is 3D Art,” she said. “It’s ceramics, I take it with my friend Madison (Shapiro), we get to throw on the wheel every morning. It’s my favorite thing ever. And it’s the best break from swimming. We come right from morning practice to Art and it’s awesome.”
Her proudest creation is a foot-tall Christmas tree she made using sgraffito, a method of meticulously and intricately scratching through the clay to etch out the desired object or design.
“That was really fun to make. It took me a month-and-a-half to finish it,” she said.
It’s all a part of being a well-rounded student. And Auwarter will take that with her when she heads to University of Delaware next year. The Blue Hens were among the nearly two dozen schools involved in Auwarter’s recruiting process and were one of the first programs she looked at. After falling out of sight and out of mind, Delaware shot to the top of the list after the swim team’s coach touched base out of the blue.
“The recruiting process took a lot of time, and it was very difficult,” Auwarter said. “Delaware was probably the second school I talked to and I just stopped talking to them for like 7 months. Then out of nowhere, the coach reached out to me. I was really close to committing somewhere else, but at the last minute I visited there and loved it.
“Everything about it is similar to what Upper Dublin has – the coaches, the training style, the people. The team is really close, and I wanted to be a part of it.”
Auwarter is aiming to swim in the 200 and 400 IM as well as the butterfly at Delaware. She’s considering a major in finance, though that’s not set in stone.
Whatever her college athletic and academic career may hold, her coaches expect she will find nothing but the same types of success she’s worked for at Upper Dublin.
“Delaware is getting someone that is going to be a continuation of what she is here right now,” Pierce said. “She’s someone who’s going to walk in with confidence, put in the effort, and do everything she can to contribute to the team.
“I still think one thing that impresses me the most about Olivia is how happy she gets about others’ success. She’s cheering the loudest when someone else gets their best swim. She’s so happy for them. That’s what a leader does – she builds up and motivates others to be their best while she’s also doing her best. That’s what Delaware is getting with Olivia.”
