By Justin Feil, Assistant Sports Editor
Like many kids, Julia Troilo is juggling a number of activities throughout the year.
What separates the Princeton resident who spends her summers swimming for the Nassau Swim Club from many other 11-year-olds is that she also literally juggles. In addition to swimming for Nassau and playing lacrosse in the fall and spring, Troilo practices juggling among other things with Stone Soup Circus.
”In circus, we do unicycle, juggling, a little of everything,” Troilo said. “It’s in Princeton. I do Stone Soup Circus. I watched one of my family friend’s daughters do a show and decided I wanted to do that.”
Troilo can’t get enough of it, and she is considering one day being a professional performer. She’s getting all the skills down now.
”Our instructors know a lot of tricks,” said Troilo, who will be a sixth grader at John Witherspoon Middle School. “When they see you’ve mastered the basics, they give you more to learn. Sometimes you can learn from YouTube.”
Troilo has been going to Stone Soup Circus for three years, and her talents have grown with practice. She has a new favorite trick.
”Jumps on a unicycle,” Troilo said. “You stand up on the pedals, and hold on the seat and get a bounce and then keep going. I kind of want to join Cirque du Soleil. I’m going to keep doing it. I really like it.”
In the summer, Troilo puts a lot of her effort into swimming for the Nassau Swim Club. She recently helped Nassau place second in Division 2 at the Princeton Area Swimming and Diving Association Championships.
”I think we did better than we expected,” Troilo said. “It was exciting to place that high in the championships.”
Nassau had enjoyed a solid regular season with wins in two of their four meets. Nassau put together one of its better days in the PASDA Championships meet.
”On paper, we should have been third,” said Nassau head coach Morgan Sawin. “We were right in the middle of our division out of five teams and we ended up second. We had some really good relays and some individual swims that placed a lot higher than we thought. Mostly, we had a really good turnout. It helps.
”Usually it’s a struggle because it’s in the middle of the week and parents work, but they made an effort to come out. It’s a small meet and a small league, so a kid that doesn’t usually score a lot of points can score points since the top 12 score. Depth really pays off at a meet like that.”
Julia Troilo was happy to be a part of the act. She teamed with Isabelle Monaghan, Margaret Hill and Olivia Egan for second in the girls 12-and-under 200 medley relay in 2:50.69. The same quartet teamed up for fourth in the girls 12-and-under 200 free relay. Julia was third in the breaststroke in 51.71 seconds and tied for 13th in the 50 free.
”I think I did pretty well, especially in the breaststroke,” Troilo said. “That was my best swim.”
Troilo had taken up swimming a year after her sister, Maddy, and she has developed her strengths over the years to be a benefit to Nassau.
”I think when I was younger probably freestyle was my better stroke,” Julia said. “But as I got older, breaststroke got better and better.”
Nassau swam to its strengths to do well across the board. Julia’s older sister won the girls 14-and-under 100 individual medley in 1:22.36, placed third in the 50 free in 31.55 seconds and anchored the winning girls 14-and-under 200 free relay in 2:18.68. She is one of the club’s fastest swimmers.
”Maddy, she swims at 5 in the morning with her club team,” Sawin said. “We have a couple swimmers that practice mostly with their club. I would see Maddy sometimes in the morning because I swim with the masters at Community Park. She’d come in to practice, and in addition to being a great swimmer, she’s great with the younger kids. They love her. She was good at helping out. She was like another coach. She kept them getting to the blocks on time. She’s really mature for her age. I trust her to get the kids organized.
”Julia, she works hard and has improved. They’re just nice girls and their mom’s great and it’s a really nice family. Julia was our breaststroker for our 11-12 relay. We needed her. We were happy to have her.”
Nassau got solid swims out of its group. Isabelle Monaghan won the 12-and-under girls 50 back in 39.31 seconds and was second in the 100 IM. Henry DeCheser won the boys 12-and-under 50 fly in 42.22 seconds. Daniel Baytin of Nassau was named the Most Valuable Swimmer for 8-and-under boys to highlight the day.
”It feels nice,” Sawin said. “It’s kind of like closure. It’s nice to solidify all their hard work and how much faster you got.
”Nassau, we were always at the top of our division, and we’d win and move up, then the next year we’d move down. They decided you only move up if the differential is huge. It’s still nice to place up there. Our goal is always to win. We have more goals now for next year and our goal is to win.”
Julia Troilo is confident that Nassau will be in good shape for next year. They don’t lose any swimmers to graduation this year.
”I think we’ll probably be even better at championships than this year,” Troilo said. “We have a lot of really strong swimmers at the younger ages. When they get older, they’ll be stronger and we’ll be better next year than this year.”
Julia is hopeful that she will continue to improve. She has her older sister there to help influence her.
”It definitely helps me,” Julia said. “She’s much faster than me. I try to be as fast as her. That helps push me.”
It is a lot to handle, but Julia Troilo is a young lady with many talents, and swimming is just one of them that she juggles so well.
