Returning WPIAL, PIAA qualifiers bolster Shady Side Academy swim teams

By: Josh Rizzo
Saturday, December 13, 2025 | 11:01 AM

Ava Jochims broke through on the PIAA Class 2A stage as a sophomore swimmer. The Shady Side Academy girls swim team standout is hoping to help the team by building on their success.

Jochims won PIAA championships in the 200 IM and 500 freestyle.

“She hopes to repeat that feat against his season,” Bulldogs coach Erika Cooper said.

In addition to Jochims, Shady Side Academy will return a number of WPIAL qualifiers including Alessia Raman, Eliana Chachula and Sophie Vrcic. The Bulldogs will be looking to replace Ellis Berkman, who graduated, and Amel Reagans, who suffered a season-ending injury during field hockey.

“The girls’ team should vastly improve upon its results from last season with a strong freshmen class to supplement the returning swimmers,” Cooper said. “Our goal for the girls’ side is to develop the younger swimmers, see where they assist the team and fill gaps that may have existed in our lineups for the past couple of seasons. While we still do not have the depth present on the boys’ team, the girls should see significantly improved results this year.”

Shady Side Academy will also return a number of strong athletes on the boys’ side. The Bulldogs will need to replace Soren Cooper, who qualified for states all four years, and sprint specialist Austin Liu.

Shady Side Academy brings back several experienced swimmers as well, including Caden Zhao, Lex Akhavan, Luke David, Joe Hosteny, Harlan Cooper, Rich Ma and Alex Chen.

All of the aforementioned swimmers qualified for WPIALs last season.

Zhao and David qualified for the PIAA championships last season. Cooper expects Shady Side Academy’s boys team to be in the running for the section championship as a team again.

The Bulldogs had an undefeated meet schedule last year. Shady Side Academy also finished in the top five in the WPIAL and top eight in the PIAA.

“The challenge for the boys’ team this year is maintaining the level of success they reached last season while filling in some gaps that we currently have due to graduation,” Cooper said. “It has been a process that is three to four years in the making, but we are now seeing some of the rewards of all of the hard work that students have put in a number of years. The boys’ team has a storied history and returning to consistent, high-level performances is definitely one of those goals.”

Cooper said that so far she is pleased with how the distance events have gone.

“We already have multiple WPIAL qualifiers in the 500 free on both rosters after only two dual meets so far this season,” Cooper said. “The challenge that we face is that high school swimming is much more sprint-oriented than USA swimming, and we are going to need some of our distance swimmers to be more versatile and swim shorter events and sprints for relays for us to really achieve success at the end of the season.”

Tags: Shady Side Academy