Swimmers of all ages accept the challenge
OCEAN CITY — For a 10-year-old squirt who never swam a mile in the ocean, for women doing their second distance swim in a day, and for the competitive racers aiming to win, the 2025 T. John Carey Master’s Swim late Sunday afternoon offered something for everyone involved.
The 45th annual event July 13 was a mile race in the ocean. The 181 registered competitors gathered at the 12th Street beach and hit the water just after 4:30 p.m. under sun and blue skies. The fastest made it to the finish at the 20th Street beach in about 20 minutes.
“I like swimming and I like the ocean, so I wanted to try it,” said Liliana Hart, 10, of Bucks County, Pa. She had never swam a mile before but decided it would be fun. The youngest registered swimmer attends the Pen Ryn School in Fairless Hills, Pa.
She was with her dad, Robert Hart, and cousin, Christine Buehler, 12, who swims for the Upper Dublin (Pa.) Aquatic Club.
Christine said she came to the swim “because my friend said she was going to do it and then she chickened out.”
Buehler is no chicken, nor is her uncle, who said he was acting as chaperone to the girls.
“I’m getting a little out there in age so we’ll see if I can keep up with the younger ones here today,” Robert Hart said. He was concerned they would smoke him, with bragging rights on the line. “I’m sure I won’t hear the end of it.”
In the end, the 42-year-old crossed the finish line at the same time as Liliana (34 minutes and 8 seconds), but Buehler got there in 30:29.
“There’s people here for the competition who are racing to win this, but most people seem to be either racing for themselves or to have fun,” Ocean City Beach Patrol Deputy Chief Tony Mehalic said.
“It’s all about having fun whenever you have a race like this that’s well put together and is well organized by that fantastic crew that we have here. It just makes it a lot of fun to race against a lot of friends. There’s a lot of locals here that have been doing it for years,” Mehalic said.
He noted the race direction changes north or south depending on the current and it was a long time since the OCBP held the race on a Sunday rather than a Saturday. It also was late afternoon rather than morning or evening as in years past. The OCBP wanted to see if the changes would attract a larger field.
“For some families, it’s a tradition that they do every year,” fellow OCBP Deputy Chief Holly Lesser said. “Some are training for maybe something bigger or this is their end game. People love this. I think people come back mostly for tradition, but it’s also a great workout for some that are just in town for the week.”
Lesser said they always hold the race on a weekend but one benefit of doing it at 4:30 p.m. was still having lifeguards on the beach who could race into the surf in case any of the competitors ran into trouble.
Twelve-year-old Cooper Peck, son of longtime OCBP lifeguard Calvin Peck, swims with the Seahawks club team and wanted to do the race “because it’s fun.”
“I did it myself 26 years ago when I joined the beach patrol,” Calvin Peck said. “And I haven’t done it in a long, long time so I’m curious to see how he’ll do. As long as he stays comfortable, he’ll be fine.”
Cooper was fine. The Ocean City lad finished in 24:08, fifth among the dozen swimmers age 15 and under and 36th overall. His dad noted Cooper will be competing for Ocean City in an upcoming junior lifeguard competition and the Middle Atlantic Junior Championships.
Susan Jurusz, Veronica Glanville and Celeste Rowan, members of the Wild Harbor Tri Club — a triathlon club based in the Wildwoods — were doing double duty Sunday, at least for two of them.
Jurusz, mother of a Wildwood Crest Beach Patrol guard, said they love all the races.
“We did the Wildwoods ocean swim yesterday, we did the Poverty Cove swim this morning and we’re here tonight to do the Ocean City swim,” she said.
They also planned to do the Sea Isle City mile swim, scheduled for 11 a.m. Saturday, July 19.
“I love open-water swimming,” Rowan said. “I’ve been doing it a long time and I’m getting old, so why not?”
She said she planned to keep doing the swims. The “why not” was answered when she won the wetsuit division, finishing in 27:45.
Glanville said she loves the swims as much as the other two. She skipped on the Poverty Cove swim but came to Ocean City.
“I love the ocean swim,” she said. “They have a nice current taking you down to the finish line and if you get tired, you can kind of just let it take you.”
The Unionville High School swim team from Kennett Square, Pa., used the Master’s Swim as a bonding exercise because they don’t normally meet in the summer.
Mike Mangan, overseeing the group, said they had current swimmers, future swimmers and graduates all taking part.
“We’re trying to make this a tradition. This is the first one that we’ve had with this many kids; we have 19 overall. We have four dads swimming and we have 15 kids,” Mangan said.
“It’s sort of like our summer team bonding activity. We’re a winter sport, so we don’t really see anybody through the summer and this is a good chance for us to get together and do something this summer, keep the team together.”
New Ocean City High School grad Brynn Gallagher, a veteran surfer, swim team member and competitor for the OCBP as a paddleboarder, came with her dad, Chad Gallagher.
“I’m switching it up today,” Brynn laughed about giving her paddleboard a rest. “I figured why not. I might as well give it a try. Mr. Keyser would be proud.” (Ian Keyser is the girls swim coach at OCHS.)
“She talked me into it,” Chad said of his daughter. “We decided about 30 minutes ago that we wanted to do it.”
He admitted he didn’t do a lot of training for it, obviously, “But I’m going to try to hang with her. We’re an Ocean City surf family, so surfing helps. It’s the same muscles.”
Dad did keep up with his daughter. Both finished at the same time, 26:44.
At the finish
Holly Aiken, a 15-year-old heading into her junior year at OCHS, where she competes on the swim team, finished third among the 15 girls age 15 and under, with a time of 23:18.
“It was honestly great,” she said. “The water was warm. The current helped a lot.” This was the first time she tried the mile swim.
“I love swimming in the ocean. I didn’t feel any jellyfish, thankfully,” Holly added. “I was basically by myself because everyone was either ahead or behind me. I didn’t have to run into any people.”
Lexi Santer, a former OCBP guard, and Summer DeWitt, a current guard, came into shore together and finished second and third, respectively, among female competitors. Santer outraced DeWitt on the beach.
“This year we had a little bit more ocean to deal with because it was choppy,” Santer said. “For people who swim in the ocean, we kind of get a little advantage over some of the pool swimmers, which is good.”
“Like Lexi said, it was pretty rough,” DeWitt, 18, added. “I just got back from a five-week break after surgery, so I’m really proud of how I swam today.” She finished in 21:34.
Santer, 28, an occupational therapist and coach of a club team in Delaware, had been one of the OCBP’s outstanding competitors in lifeguard competitions.
“I’m a coach, so I’m transitioning into that part of the sport. More the coach, less the athlete,” Santer said. Placing second in 21:29, only 6 seconds behind the winner, shows she is still quite the athlete.
“I have to stay faster than my swimmers,” Santer said, smiling. “They have to have something to chase.”
The female winner was Olivia Vecchio of Reading, Pa., an 18-year-old who just graduated from high school and will be swimming for Florida Gulf Coast University. She finished in 21:23.
Vecchio never raced in the ocean and wasn’t even expecting to do this race.
“My friends from Georgia are visiting and they’ve never been to the Jersey Shore, so we came today for the first time. Somebody told us there was like an open water race. So we were like, oh, let’s sign up and do it,” she said. “I’ve never raced a mile and I’ve never done open-water swimming, so it was the first time, but it was fun.”
“It was definitely different,” Vecchio said. “I’m used to swimming in the pool and I play a lot of water polo. It was low-key similar to playing water polo with all the waves, the splashing and the people next to you.”
Jacob Texter, 20, an OCBP lifeguard, was the overall winner and the only one to break 20 minutes, finishing with a time of 19:37.
Texter said he paced fellow lifeguard Dante Buonadonna, who finished second in 20 minutes flat.
“I just kind of beat the crowd out, got around the ball (a flotation marking a corner on the course),” he said, and paced with the rookie guard before the end when he shifted into another gear “to really hammer it home.”
“It’s awesome to represent Ocean City every time we come out,” Texter said. “Ocean City is a great big family, so there is a lot of support here. It always feels great, especially when you’re winning at home.”
See full results by Split Second Racing at my.raceresult.com/327519/results.
– STORY and PHOTOS by DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
