For Ava Vial, Trust and Fresh Approach Guided Her to First MAC Medal
Noah Tylutki, Strategic Communications Coordinator
3/14/2025
As Ava Vial swims in her final collegiate meet at the CSCAA National Invitational Championship this weekend, take a look back at her career-defining moment and journey as she reached her ultimate goal of medaling (top three) at this year's MAC Championships.
AVA VIAL STARED at the blue and white scoreboard for about six seconds.
She wanted to make sure it was real.
It was just after the A final of the 200-yard breaststroke on the final day of the 2025 Mid-American Conference Swimming & Diving Championships on March 1 at Buffalo's Alumni Arena Natatorium. Swimming in lane No. 8, the graduate student read the number three in the place column next to a time of 2:15.25.
She was fully aware of what a top three placement meant — earning a medal donning the MAC logo that would be received as she stood on the awards podium after the race.
“I was like, ‘That cannot be right,’” Vial remembered thinking.
The time and place were not wrong.
The medallion was a piece of MAC hardware that she strived for ever since arriving in Bowling Green five years earlier. It was built on a passion for the sport, love for her family and teammates and, most importantly, trust.
Trust in her ability to swim in an event she had never raced in at the MAC Championships, which surprised some coaches around the conference.
Trust in a brand-new head coach who understood her desire and drive to compete at the highest level.
Trust in her family and teammates’ endless support of her ambitions.
For Vial, the emotion of achieving her career-long goal of medaling at the MAC Championships was satisfying.
The journey to attain her dream fulfilled it.
IN A STORY titled “Man of Steel” dated April 24, 1995, the Ottawa Sun stated that Dennis Vial “was not hired to score goals, but for his physical play, and, if the situation requires it, for his fists.”
The eight-year NHL defenseman, who played mostly for the expansion Ottawa Senators, was known as an aggressive enforcer on the ice “whose popularity and success flows from the work he does with his gloves off.”
In his first three seasons with the team, he became the team’s all-time leader in penalty minutes.
The roots of Ava’s work ethic and determination germinate from what she observed from her father. His wife, Melissa, had Ava while he was playing for the minor league ECHL’s Columbia Inferno in South Carolina.
“Growing up with having him around the household and just seeing how hard he worked, it inspires me every single day,” Ava said about him. “He was always there to back up his teammates. I'm definitely the same way. I'll do anything for any of these girls on the team, because they become your family.”
Family was never too far away from Ava.
A year after she was born, her family moved to Dennis’ native Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. Two and a half years later, they departed for Melissa’s native Port Williams, Nova Scotia – a quaint agricultural town on a river an hour northwest of Halifax, the province’s capital city.
Ava and her older brother, Dean, grew up just 10 houses down from Melissa’s parents (Nana and Papa, as Ava refers to them as). They were also across the street from Melissa’s brother, Norm Batherson, and his family, which include cousins Drake, who is an NHL All-Star right winger for the Senators, and Mae, who plays for the Professional Women’s Hockey League’s Minnesota Frost.
“My family is very important to me back home,” Ava said. “They're the most supportive people you’ll probably ever meet in your life. They're just so proud of all of us. We were so tight growing up. They’d do anything for us, and I would do anything for them.”
In a family ripe with hockey players (Norm even played professionally for various minor league NHL affiliates and in Germany) and always surrounded by activity, Ava found her sports calling in swimming. She tried hockey as well as figure skating but ultimately did not like how cold the rinks could get inside.
Instead, she opted for the warmth of the pool deck.
When Ava was five years old, her elementary school handed out flyers for a free week of swimming with the Wolfville Tritons Swim Club. The club trained at a university just across the river from Port Williams.
The young Ava was adamant about trying a new sport, bringing the flyer home to Melissa. She agreed to drive Ava over to a practice.
After that free week, Ava was hooked and stayed with the club until she left for Bowling Green at age 18.
Growing up with having [my father, Dennis] around the household and just seeing how hard he worked, it inspires me every single day. He was always there to back up his teammates. I'm definitely the same way. I'll do anything for any of these girls on the team, because they become your family.Ava Vial
After entering an online program to help her connect with college coaches in the United States, Vial ultimately chose BGSU over Florida Atlantic and Marshall. After a COVID-dampened freshman year, she started to fall in love with Bowling Green when the campus slowly started to reopen again.
Before this season, one of Vial’s key years came as a sophomore when she swam in the 400 Individual Medley A final and in two B finals at the 2022 MAC Championships, helping the Falcons to a sixth-place finish as a team. It was their best placement before the 2025 meet. She trained under former BGSU assistant coach Christina Noens, with whom Vial quickly developed a connection.
It also included practicing next to six-time MAC champion and two-time NCAA Championships qualifier Daisy Platts, which helped Vial have the drive and determination to one day be a MAC medalist like Platts.
“I looked up to her so much,” Vial said about Platts. “I remember I would try and keep up with her underwaters during sets, and it improved my swimming a lot. When you have someone that you can look up to and almost try and beat, I was like, ‘I'm going to keep up with Daisy today.’ She motivated me every day to improve. Just having someone like that was amazing to have on the team.”
For the next two years, Vial was continuously thinking about one day medaling at the MAC Championships. She was surrounded by anxiety as she was constantly chasing her goal.
Vial only appeared in one A final during that time—the 200 IM in 2024, where she placed fifth.
Entering her fifth year with a renewed spirit and open mindset, coupled with a new head coach, Tanner Barton, Vial began to rethink her approach to achieving her main objective.
“The year prior, I focused so much on wanting it so bad that it was just always on my mind,” Vial said. “This year, I still obviously wanted it just as equally bad, but I detached from the whole mindset of chasing it and just sat back and put in the work. I thought, ‘Whatever happens happens. You put in the work regardless.’ I just focused on staying calm throughout the entire year.”
Vial credits her teammates, as well as Barton in particular, for helping her remain calm.
“I remember at the beginning of the year, I was just like, ‘All I need from you is to just tell me that you believe in me,’” Vial said to Barton. “‘That's literally all I need, and if you can show me and tell me that you believe in what I can do in the pool, I'll believe in myself even more when you have that kind of validation.’ I think that was a huge part.”
Vial’s fresh approach to the season also rubbed off on Barton.
“When I met Ava for the first time, she seemed like a very analytical and intelligent swimmer,” Barton said. “She also seemed like someone who liked the sport and wanted to compete and succeed without it dominating her whole life. That is a very rare balance.
“You find some people at this level who absolutely love the sport, but it engrosses every single minute of their day. She knew that this was her final year, and she had a mindset of, ‘Let's go ahead and get started without it dominating every waking minute.’”
Similar to what she experienced with Noens, Vial found an immediate synergy with Barton. During their initial meeting, Vial outlined a detailed plan to Barton on what she believed worked well for her before and how she wanted to implement it into her final season.
“We talked a lot about the training she did as a sophomore,” Barton said. “I could also tell that she was someone who, if she believes in something, she will excel at it based on how she presented the information. So, as a coach, I identified that she is someone who needs to fully believe and trust in what we're doing, and if I can earn that trust and belief, then she is going to soar.”
“I wanted to be that coach that she could trust in who could help her get to that next level.”
The trust between the pair continued to build throughout the summer and into the initial fall sessions as Vial consistently showed her levelheadedness and appreciated Barton’s approach to practicing with intention. While she mainly swam butterfly and IM events throughout her career at Bowling Green, Barton observed one key movement with Vial during one October practice that he thought could get her to the next level.
During an IM set in which all four strokes are performed, Barton noticed the great distance Vial was getting off her breaststroke pullouts, which is what a swimmer does when coming off a wall turn. Since Vial was gaining so much ground underwater after pushing off the wall before going into her stroke tempo, Barton thought she would likely be able to maintain the tempo and stroke throughout a 200-yard breaststroke event.
Despite never swimming a pure breaststroke event at the MAC Championships and primarily participating in the 200 butterfly on the final day of the meet, the first-year BGSU head coach was prompted to experiment and see if it was a viable event for Vial to try to score in later in the meet.
Barton’s decision to eventually have Vial swim the 200 breaststroke at the conference meet was solidified when she hit a time of 2:19.62 in a dual meet against Akron, the reigning MAC champions.
She won the event, besting eventual MAC Most Outstanding Swimmer Abby Daniel.
“I was impressed with her breaststroke pullouts in the meet and how she attacked that race, Barton said. “Ultimately, I continued to see her breaststroke in training and trusted my gut. Her and I met in my office, and I said, ‘Let's do the 200 breaststroke instead of 200 butterfly.’ She was like, ‘Really?’ and I was like, ‘Yes.’ She said, ‘OK.’
"We have that trust. She could have done four or five different events for our team, but I said, ‘Where are you going to help our team the most in scoring points?’ I thought that it would be that 200 breaststroke, and she was all in.”
As a coach, I identified that [Ava] is someone who needs to fully believe and trust in what we're doing, and if I can earn that trust and belief, then she is going to soar. I wanted to be that coach that she could trust in who could help her get to that next level.Tanner Barton
VIAL WAS UPSET. It was the conclusion of the A final in her specialty event at the 2025 MAC Championships – the 400 IM.
It was the race she was supposed to have the best chance to earn that ever-so coveted medal in.
A four appeared on the scoreboard in the place column next to Vial’s lane number.
Even words of encouragement and advice from a prior phone call with Noens were not enough to help Vial overcome the monumental hurdle.
After the race, Vial shared with Barton how frustrated she was about the result of the race.
“It was the one moment when Ava became extremely vulnerable and shared how much that she wanted to have a medal to commemorate her time at BG and as a swimmer in the MAC,” Barton said. “She never made a big deal about medals throughout the year, because she knew she was swimming for the team.”
In the array of emotions, it was forgotten that Vial still had one more individual event to swim in at the meet.
“I don't know if she even believed in herself that she would get a medal in the 200 breaststroke, but I said, ‘We've got another event. We're not done with the championship quite yet.’”
The next day – the final session of competition – Vial took eighth in the prelims of the 200 breaststroke to just sneak into the event’s A final.
What followed was a career and program-defining moment for herself and Barton.
As she was walking over to the starting blocks at Lane No. 8 in the back of the A finalist parade, some people who helped shape her career flashed in her memory.
Such as Dennis, who had such a successful athletic career in professional hockey and who Ava wanted to medal for, Noens, who as a coach helped pull out her joy of the sport through her positivity and encouragement and Platts, who as a teammate constantly drove her to be the best swimmer she could be.
Vial was in sixth after the first 50 yards. She clawed into fourth in the next 100 yards with just 50 more to take a medal.
She could see her teammates crowded above the lane on the far end of the pool with each head bob of her breaststroke.
“I thought to myself, ‘Screw it. Just go balls to the wall as hard as you can.’ I said to myself, ‘Just trust yourself. Trust your training.’”
When the moment finally sunk in that Vial had finally earned the first MAC medal of her career, she recognized the support she had from those same teammates that helped her gain a sense of calmness as she went into her final season.
“I wasn’t even thinking that I did it,” Vial said. “I was like, ‘We did it! This was us!’
Any pain Vial may have experienced during the race was completely washed away once she exited the pool.
Tears started to well up in her eyes as she grinned from ear to ear. The first person she went to see was Barton, who was equally filled with jubilation.
“I don't know if there's been a race where I've been screaming and jumping as much as I was,” Barton said. “Afterwards, we hugged, and she said, ‘Thank you.’ That was all I needed to hear as a coach.”
It was a thank you for pushing her past her limits for the entire year.
A thank you for believing in her as a swimmer.
A thank you for trusting her abilities.
“She executed that race plan and strategy to a tee,” Barton said. “It was also reassuring for me as a coach because she trusted me throughout the season. She trusted me on the day of the race. All of that, coupled with her appreciation and gratitude, made for the most memorable moment and day that I've had so far at BG.”
Vial, who graduated with an undergraduate degree in dietetics last year, will also receive her MBA in the summer. She understands that letting go of the sport that helped her participate in “the greatest 18 years of her life” will be one of the hardest things she will face as she pursues a career as a dietician who helps others with health and wellness.
Underneath her innate desire to succeed is a kind-heartedness and compassion for others. As the team’s community service chair on its Leadership Council, she has helped make volunteering for various projects around campus and in the community a key pillar to what the program is defined by, as they have won BG’s Community Service Team of the Year award in the last three years.
She has found ways to see what the power of the sport that has given her so much can reap for others – trusting herself on a fresh journey in a new chapter of her life.
I don't know if there's been a race where I've been screaming and jumping as much as I was. Afterwards, we hugged, and she said, ‘Thank you.’ That was all I needed to hear as a coach.Tanner Barton
