Sports
Whiz Kids: The Blue Wave Swim Team at the Brandon Sports & Aquatic Center
The Blue Wave Swim Team at the Brandon Sports & Aquatic Center traces its roots as a Brandon fixture back to 1963. The 110-member team continues to excel, with both individual and team accomplishments.
The Blue Wave Swim Team at the Brandon Sports Aquatic Center is a whiz at claiming worldwide notoriety.
The team recently announced that Barbara Carabello and Maddie Hess came home as national and junior national qualifiers, respectively, from the YMCA of Central Florida Senior Championships in Orlando on Feb. 26.
But high marks go to the entire team as well, said Lori Bukaweski, associate director of the team’s home base, the Brandon Sports & Aquatic Center in Brandon.
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The 110-member Blue Wave Swim Team was first established in 1963, when the center was then a club under private ownership and known as the Brandon Swim and Tennis Club. The club in 2004 became a non-profit club with an extended community mission.
“The Blue Wave Swim Team has evolved form a small summer team to a nationally renowned world-class team that have the years has produced Olympians and countless NCAA champions,” Bukaweski said.
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Olympians from the team have included Brooke Bennett, Maritza Correia and Briley Bergin.
Justin Correia, Martiza’s brother, a national qualifier himself, also trained as a youth at the Brandon Sports & Aquatic Center under then-club coach Peter Banks. Justin Correia recently returned as head coach of the Blue Wave Swim Team, and at the on March .
To join the team, “you come out to the facility and have an evaluation to detrmine which group you would start training with and you’re placed form there,” Bukaweski said.
Some of the swimmers who have gone on to national acclaim “took their very first swim lesson here,” Bukaweski said. “In terms of swimming, you can start here [at the ) from womb to tomb.”
The BSAC swimming program includes the “top-notch” Learn to Swim program, the Stroke School and the Pre-Competitive Group, Bukaweski said.
The long-course season for the Blue Wave Swim Team kicks off April 22.
Bukaweski said center management is proud of all the BSAC initiatives.
“In swimming, tennis and gymnastics,” she said, “we have big things happening here."
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