East County swimmer in a lane of her own

With 200 NCAA Division 1 women’s swimming programs giving out approximately 2,800 scholarships each year, and almost 200,000 girls competing on high school swim programs, scholarship opportunities are reserved for the most elite athletes.

So when 13-year-old Mill Creek swimmer Ava DiPasquale told her dad, Derek, not to worry about paying for her future college tuition, it would have been easy for him to brush it off as the false hope of an over-eager adolescent. 

Ava DiPasquale, however, is not like most 13-year-olds.

On Dec. 6-8, DiPasquale, who attends Haile Middle School and swims for the Sarasota Tsunami swim team, competed in the 2024 Gator Holiday Classic at the Florida Aquatics Swimming and Training center in Ocala. It was a weekend DiPasquale, her team and her family will remember for quite some time.

DiPasquale, who was competing in the 12U division, broke Florida swimming records in the 100 and 200-yard individual medley for her age division. Her times of :59.4 in the 100 and 2:07.9 in the 200 ranked DiPasquale first and second, respectively, in the nation for her age group, according to Tsunami Swim Head Coach Ira Klein. DiPasquale, who won six individual events in the three-day competition, is USA Swimming’s second-ranked swimmer in the 11-12 division and is ranked first in Florida Swimming, per Swimcloud.com.

So yes, when DiPasquale told her father that she’d receive a full ride to a Division 1 college for swimming, her promise had some validity to it.

What’s remarkable about DiPasquale’s story is her background. DiPasquale does not come from a swimming family. Her father, Derek and her mother, Jen, didn’t play high level sports. She has not been trained in an academy since infancy nor has she swam timed laps in the kiddie pool, her parents manning stopwatches and shaking their heads in disapproval.

DiPasquale didn’t even start swimming until she was 9 years old, when she found herself stuck at home during the COVID-19 pandemic, in need of something to do.

The proposition had started innocuously enough — try an activity to see if she liked it. Her parents had enrolled her in different sports, but nothing had stuck. Then, she took to the water.

It didn’t take long for Derek and Jen to realize that their oldest daughter was different from the rest of the swimmers her age. Ava glided through the water with ease, exhibiting an instinctual level of control over her movements that’s rare among young athletes.

While Derek and Jen knew Ava was good — her coaches at Sarasota Tsunami had told them as much — , they weren't aware of just how good she was until she competed at the same Gator Swim Meet in 2022, right before she turned 11.

“She made cuts for the next age group up and won the entire meet," said Derek. “We could see that Ava was special. She showed an incredible ability to perform under pressure. I remember talking to her in the garage that night and telling her that I’d do anything I could to help her reach her goals. She pointed to the top times in the country and said that’s where she wanted to be and now she’s there.”

Courtesy image

Over the past two seasons, DiPasquale has established herself as one of the top swimmers in the nation in her age group. This past July, she competed in the Florida Age Group Championships in Ocala, winning the 100-meter butterfly, 200-meter butterfly, the 200-meter backstroke, the 200-meter individual medley and the 400-meter freestyle. Later that month, DiPasquale and her father travelled to Odessa, Texas, to race in the Southern Zone Age Group Championships, where she placed first in the 200-meter individual medley with a time of 2:28.03. 

DiPasquale’s times, Derek and Jen say, are only important to them because they are important to their daughter. Behind the times that DiPasquale records in the pool, are the thousands of hours that she’s spent working toward those goals. 

DiPasquale leaves school early every day at 1:30 p.m. to practice with the high school-aged girls on the Sarasota Tsunami. Lakewood Ranch junior Payton Griffin picks her up and drives her to the pool, where Ava spends three hours a day, six days a week striving to get better, keeping pace with girls three, four and even five years older than her. 

DiPasquale goals are lofty. She wants to make an Olympic trials cut in 2028, with the hope of potentially making the team for the 2032 Summer Olympics in Brisbane. Equally as important as her training, however, is managing the mental aspect of it all — both she and her parents are aware of how draining this can be for a young person. 

DiPasquale concedes that she wants to “stay passionate” about swimming. The pool began as — and remains — a safe space for her. Her parents plan on keeping it that way. 

“When I first started swimming, I liked that I could get in the water after a terrible day and instantly feel better,” said DiPasquale. “To this day I’ve never had a truly bad practice. Even if I’m not that excited to swim, I always come out feeling better than I did before.”