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Sweet finish for Conant at Hersey Invitational

About the only disappointment for Conant in the Hersey Invitational? Not winning the celebratory gummi-bear relay at the end of the meet.

Everything else went sweetly for the Cougars, who proved to be the class of the six-team field at Olympic Pool in Arlington Heights.

Senior Palmer Lynch celebrated his 18th birthday with individual wins in the 50 free (22.46) and the 100 free (50.35), and he also anchored Conant’s winning freestyle relays.

Conant finished with 412 points, safely ahead of four teams clustered together. Deerfield placed second at 281, followed by Hersey (276), Jacobs/Dundee-Crown (266) and Wheeling (239).

The Cougars got things started well by winning both the frosh-soph and varsity medley relays. The varsity group of David Wollschlager, Brandon Grzegorek, Alan Wojciechowski and Chad Woytus won in 1:43.80.

“It’s exciting for us, because this meet shows us this is the team we’re going to have for the end of the season, everybody’s in their places now,” said Conant coach Brian Drenth.

That was not quite the case for Hersey. Sophomore sprinter Samuel Kim had to leave in mid-meet with flu symptoms after placing second in the 50 free (23.41) and swimming a leg on the Huskies’ 200 free relay.

Another standout Hersey soph, Jeff Ruffin, placed second in the 100 and 200 freestyles, but collectively the Huskies seemed to be feeling the effects of a tough Friday night night dual against Wheeling.

“I was talking to Jeff and explaining that we’re asking him to do the kinds of things for our team that you usually ask of your seniors,” said Hersey coach Dick Mortensen. “We have a young team, and sometimes they need to re-focus a little bit bettter. We need him to be a leader for us.”

The only drawback for the Jacobs/Dundee-Crown group coached by Rick Andresen is depth in the freestyles. Alex Elston won the 100 fly (54.91) and Kevin Ewing won the 200 IM (2:05.45) and 100 back (56.40), but the Jacobs/D-C 400 free relay finished fifth.

“Elston was a state qualifier last year in the fly, and Ewing is having a nice year and Ryan Krug (third in the 100 and 200 free) is giving us good swims,” Andresen said.

Wheeling got a victory from senior Shane McDade in the 100 breastroke (1:05.06), an event he only started swimming this season after a shoulder injury prevented him from swimming the butterfly.

And although the Wildcats were fifth as a team, they were close to a top-three finish, which is a huge leap forward for a team that had struggled to compete in recent years.

“It’s a lot more fun this year,” said McDade. “We used to be pretty much at the bottom — now we’re a lot closer to the top.”

St. Viator (205 points) got its top finishes from Ryan Boyer, who placed third in the 200 IM and 100 backstroke.