North Allegheny senior Claire Bacu is making quick work in the longest event in high school swimming.
The Brown recruit is eyeing her third consecutive WPIAL Class 3A 500 freestyle title, something accomplished by only three other girls in league history.
“As far as Claire goes, the sky is the limit,” said coach Patrick Wenzel, whose North Allegheny girls are favored to win their 18th consecutive WPIAL team title. “She is certainly capable of doing special things this year.”
Bacu is fast, regardless of the distance. She also owns the fastest 200 freestyle in the WPIAL Class 3A this season, according to the league’s top times list (1:50.92). She is seeking her first WPIAL gold in that event after being the runner-up each of the past two seasons. The WPIAL swimming championships are Feb. 27-28 at Pitt’s Trees Pool.
“That is, of course, the goal,” Bacu said. “There is some good competition, but I’m definitely shooting for first in the 500 and the 200 at WPIALs, and at states as well, especially since a lot of the competition from last year has graduated. I’m really excited.”
Bacu placed second in the 200 free and the 500 free at the 2025 PIAA championships, but her path to the top has cleared. She is the only returning top-seven finisher in the PIAA 200, and the defending 500 free champ, former Wissahickon star Nora Weber, is now a freshman at Auburn.
Bacu, who committed to Division I Brown in late May, never envisioned herself as a potential state champion when she began swimming at about age 7. Even in junior high, she was unsure whether she was going to make the team at perennial power North Allegheny.
“For a while, I was one of the slowest in my class,” she said. “It was definitely really exciting in my eighth grade year when I started dropping (my times) a lot. I’d been working very hard, and it was finally paying off.”
Now she is one of the most decorated distance freestylers in North Allegheny history. Bacu is nipping at the heels of school records in the 200 free and the 500 free. Her top 200 time (1:49.15) trails Lauren McGrath’s mark set in 2015 (1:48.84).
In the 500, Bacu’s top time (4:52.24) is flirting with the school record of 4:51.80 set by Lexi Sundgren in 2022.
“I’m definitely aiming for the (500 free record),” she said. “And the record in the 200 free would be really exciting. It seems like a manageable time that I feel like I can get. I’m just training really hard to be able to get those times.”
Bacu swims about 5,000 to 6,000 yards a day — and boosted that to upward of 9,000 a day during Christmas break.
She competed at the Speedo Winter Junior Championships East in mid-December at Indianapolis, Ind. It was her first time at the prestigious event.
“It was definitely a new experience,” Bacu said. “But it was really fun. It was more nerve-wracking than any other meet.”
The hard work, combined with natural ability and competitive toughness, allowed the 5-foot-6 Bacu to earn high school All-American honors last season in the 200 free and the 500 free. She is a straight-A student and volunteers at UPMC Passavant and the North Hills Community Outreach food pantry.
“Claire is a super-talented young lady,” Wenzel said. “She has ‘it.’ She just has an absolute natural feel of the water. … And she is also a massively strong competitor. She’s a bulldog, and she races with everything she has. She checks all of the boxes.”