In the past the 16-year-old would give up staring at the black line to play football in winter, and made an appearance for Mangoplah-Cookardinia United-Eastlakes in last years finals.

But the Sherrin has been thrown to the back of the closet as he looks to achieve his swimming goals.

He clocked a personal best and championship record 51.54 seconds in the 100m freestyle at last week's NSW Country Championships in Sydney, booking his place in the Olympic trials.

Mooney also hopes to post qualifying times in the 200m and 50m freestyle, 100m backstroke and 200m individual medley.

"I made the decision (to focus on swimming) last year. I still played a bit of footy but even though I wasn't swimming full time I was still achieving good goals, so I was curious how I'd go if I put all my focus into it," Mooney said.

"There wasn't that many competitions because of COVID going into it (country championships), but I was stil pretty confident.

"I'm putting all my effort into swimming and that really does help. I'm focused on getting my times down and qualifying for bigger goals."

Mooney hopes to break the 50 second mark in the 100m freestyle by the end of the year, and also won gold in the 50m freestyle, 200m freestyle and 100m backstroke at the country championships.

He said the trials will be a great experience on how to handle the pressure of competing against the best.

"It will be great to get it under my belt so next time I'm better for it having experienced it before," he said.

"The goal is always to get faster and my goal this year is to hopefully break 50 seconds. I'll keep training and working towards that.

"It hasn't really hit me yet, I'm pretty stoked to be able to race against that calibre of competitors and it's a bit motivation for me."

Mooney's achievement was the highlight of a strong country championships campaign for Wagga Swim Club, who racked up 11 golds, seven silvers and eight bronzes across the carnival.

Ashley Van Rijswijk won gold in the Multiclass 100m breaststroke, and applications for potential new S14 NSW and Australian records have been submitted.

Other Wagga Swim Club gold medal winners at the country championships included Abbie Donelan (11-12 years 50m backstroke), Andre Labara (10 years 100m breaststroke, 100m backstroke, 100m breaststroke), Baylee Edwards (100m butterfly) and Chloe Donelan (100m backstroke).

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