11th Annual NoVa Catholics - January 16, 2021

Photo: Bishop O’Connell Coach Beth O’Connor Baker Returning the Holy Grails

This is an annual competition between the Catholic schools in the Northern half of Virginia with winners taking home the traveling “Holy Grail” trophies. Last year, Bishop O’Connell took home the Grails for both the boys and the girls. Unfortunately, Bishop O’Connell is not allowed to join us this year, so here‘s a video of DJO super-star Junior Kate Bailey handing off the Grails to Oakcrest Coach Caroline Heeter to return to this year’s Championship.

Below is the Meet Announcement for our 11th Annual Northern Virginia Catholic High School Invitational Championship at the Freedom Center on Saturday, January 16, 2021.

Seton Divers should be in the bleachers ready to stretch at 12:09 p.m. and Seton Swimmers should be in the bleachers ready to stretch at 2:19 p.m.

Because the Freedom Center will allow no spectators at this meet, we will be streaming the Meet live on this site under About/Videos or by clicking here: Videos | Seton Swimming Expect the Diving Live-stream to start around 1:00 p.m. and the Swimming Live-Stream to start around 4:00 p.m. The whole event should be over by 7:30 p.m.

The live stream can be best enjoyed if you have a print-out of the Meet Program:

Meet Program-NoVa Catholics-Jan16,21-3 column-v4

Meet Program-NoVa Catholics-Jan16,21-Diving

Here are a other few important notes:

Because of the number of swimmers involved, we have had to put some modest participation limits on the some of the teams – we are so sorry to have to do this, but we have no choice if we are to comply with limits set by the Freedom Center for warm-ups and physically distanced team areas:
- Seton – All Seton Swimmers are now eligible for this meet.
- Paul VI – limited to 68 entries (one entire warm-up session of 14 lanes dedicated just to this team plus three lanes in a separate warm-up session)
- John Paul the Great – limited to 32 entries
- St. Gertrude/Benedictine – limited to 16 entries
- Oakcrest – limited to 24 entries (across two separate warm-up sessions)
We will be offering Time Trial events in 100 Free, 50 Free, 50 Butterfly and 50 Breaststroke ONLY for those swimmers attempting to qualify for an “A” Relay at the virtual VISAA State Championship Meet.
The Meet will be USA Observed. This has been approved by Virginia Swimming.
Thank you Fr. Schultz from Paul VI for offering to lead the opening prayer at 4:10 p.m.
We had a Zoom conference to go through all of the special procedures related to having this meet safely on Wednesday, January 13, 2021 at 5:15 p.m.