Making it to the Junior Olympics just once is a feat that any youth athlete should be proud of, but for the Superior YMCA Whalers, it’s become just another event to dominate.

With 40 athletes qualifying and 15 making the trip to Greensboro, North Carolina, it’s the biggest group the YMCA has sent, and it might just be the best competition these swimmers have seen all year.

“It’s pretty crazy,” said Marc Pagnucci. “It’s just a lot higher competition than most of the other things we do for swimming.

“It’s a lot of tough competition so we’ll do our best,” added his brother, Aiden.

Paolo Pagnucci, the oldest of the three, added, “It’s always exciting being able to go and meet a bunch of people from around the nation, sometimes even globally. It’s nice to be able to get a different type of competition compared to normal, like around the area.”

Many of the 15 Whalers heading east have been to the Junior Olympics before, either in Iowa, Texas, or North Carolina.

Not only do they believe iron sharpens iron in these competitions, but it also makes their bonds closer as well.

“It’s really fun to swim somewhere else, like not in our state or anywhere near us,” said Ella Stone, one of the qualifiers. So just the trip and it’s sort of almost like a family vacation since our team is really close.”

“They’re all super supportive of one another, they’re super nice to each other,” added Shawn Pagnucci, the senior program director. “We have kids from all over the region coming to swim here at the “Y”, even representing in North Carolina we have six different schools, which is pretty great. I think they get along really well, they’re friendly with each other, they like to banter back and forth but they’re just a really great group of kids.”

Shawn certainly gets the banter and competition, considering it comes from her own house most of the time.

“Being the better brother, it’s pretty cool because everyone’s watching me,” said Marc.

“Yeah, it’s always fun to compare times though, especially within the household,” said Aiden.

“It definitely gives me a little bit more motivation to make sure that I’m still in front of both of them at any given moment I can, because I got to keep that youngest one humble any time I can,” concluded Paolo.

Despite the friendly fire on the Pagnucci side, they and the rest of the Whalers will surely be rooting each other on at the Junior Olympics.