St. Charles North hopes to join state’s elite
There is every possibility that this will be one of the most-open boys state swim meets in history, one in which an unprecedented number of teams have a chance of finishing in the Top 10 and contending for a trophy.
Or the meet could turn into a romp for New Trier, widely expected to lift the state championship trophy and add to the 20 banners already hanging in the Trevians’ pool, which is where this weekend’s swimming and diving activity takes place.
However things turn out, St. Charles North will be in the mix. Whether you place much weight on the pre-meet “psych sheet” which shows the North Stars in first place heading to today’s prelims or factor the team’s strong sectional with a largely unrested team, the fact that Rob Rooney’s team is somewhere in the mixture as events proceed toward their conclusion late Saturday afternoon.
“There’s a Web site that has a coach’s forum that I was on the other day, and someone there said it right, there’s 15 teams in Illinois, maybe 20, that can compete,” Rooney said. “Ten years ago, maybe there were four or five and 20 years ago, maybe there were two or three. Swimming’s grown. You don’t know what a team like Mundelein or Carl Sandburg can do.”
With all three relays qualified and 11 individual entries, St. Charles North has enough swims to compete for a top finish. The fact that most North Stars swimmers did not rest for the sectional meet is another key. That tapering has finished this week and the North Stars should be primed for some good-sized time drops.
“We’re fortunate to have a lot of qualifiers,” Rooney said. “We’ll do the best we can on Friday. Almost every kid we have on-deck has been on-deck for the state meet before. It’s not foreign territory for any of these boys.”
Rooney doesn’t have much time to talk about his team’s trophy chances. He puts very little weight on the psych sheet and mentioned the two teams he figures will in contention to win the title this weekend.
“I don’t care what anyone says; New Trier’s the best team in the state and Naperville Central is the defending state champion,” Rooney said. “We’ll have confidence in shaving down and putting on our superman suit and we’ll see where that takes us. We’ve been in this spot, being I the mix with everyone and the boys responded well then. I think they’ll respond well this time.”
St. Charles North finished fifth in 2007 and fourth in 2008. Even those finishes represented a near-miss on lifting a trophy, reaching the Top Five is an achievement in its own right.
The history of Illinois boys swimming has been dominated by three teams - New Trier, Hinsdale Central and St. Charles - which have 47 titles between them. But from 1998-2004, the state had a different champion every year. Even given that New Trier has won three of the last five titles, the competition has grown every year.
This year, teams like Mundelein, Sandburg and Peoria Notre Dame figure to work into the mixture of top teams.
“For the first time ever, I’m not saying much to the boys,” Rooney said. “I’m trying to be quiet on-deck. It’s their situation, not mine. They’ve been a little goofy as they get their energy back, but they also know how to do what’s best for themselves. It’s a pretty tight-knit group and what they want to do is up to them.”
The North Stars medley relay, made of Andrew Preusse, Justin Jacobson, Nick Kowaleski and Kyle Passini, is the school’s first entry with a shot to clinch a top six finish. But there’s more involved than the qualification process.
“(Preusse’s) the first one in the water for us and you want to set the tone,” Rooney said. “Where it goes from there, I’m not going to worry about that. It’s not like you can devise a defense to stop the other teams. That’s the way the sport works.”
Those four swimmers will be seen throughout the meet in individual events. Other leading hopes for top finishes come from sectional champions Kyle Gannon in 500 freestyle and Chris Dieter in the 100 and 200 freestyle.
The potential openness of the meet could help teams like Marmion which finished 10th a year ago, in its quest for another Top 10 finish.
“There are teams like Bloomington that could both get a trophy,” Marmion coach Bill Schalz said. “Those are teams that can change things. I’m sure New Trier feels they’ll get their people in because they’ve got so many people swimming. But Bloomington and (Peoria) Notre Dame and Richwoods, which don’t have as much depth, could come up here with a chip on their shoulder and light it up and then anything could happen.”
Marmion is one of those schools which haven’t put any thought into the pre-meet seedings, which show the Cadets scoring no points. But the real scoring takes place on Saturday and Schalz figures he’ll have some athletes in the water during that final day of competition.
“Our guys were looking at the (psych) sheet and the scoring and I told them that it always changes dramatically from Thursday night to Saturday afternoon,” Schalz said. “In three of the four years Rosary won the girls title, we weren’t the top team going into state. Those things don’t mean anything. I think New Trier is the favorite. St. Charles North is swimming well. Naperville Central had a good sectional meet. Neuqua Valley, Naperville North and Naperville Central, those teams all had a bunch of guys walking around the sectional meet with hair on their heads and nylon suits on. They’re going to go faster.”
As for his own team’s chances, Schalz said, “If we have a great meet, we can finish fifth,” Schalz said. “If we have a bad day, we don’t score a single point.”
The Cadets do have athletes who can score in the meet, and Schalz is figuring those swimmers will get through to the finals.
“We don’t have a superstar swimmer on our team,” Schalz said. “We’re going to have to work really hard in prelims. Ben Kanute and Andy Healy, those guys are both capable of swimming into the Top 6. For us to be a Top 10 team, we need lots of people scoring for us and to get two relays into the Top 6.”
Finding time drops from all swimmers, whether they rested for the sectional or not, is important to Marmion’s chances.
“Our goal is to get everyone to finals,” Schalz said. “We’ll take it one swim at a time and we want them all to get faster. If they get faster, then we’ll get into finals. But we don’t have a superstar, so we’re going to have to be a blue collar team and scrap for places and points.”
At St. Charles East, there’s a wide variety in the way in which athletes are preparing for the state finals in an effort to score points in the state finals after a rare year in which the Saints were shut out.
“I’ve never done anything exactly the same from year to year,” St. Charles East coach Joe Cabel said. “There’s a different flavor with every group. We have nine swimmers in the water and we’ve had eight different workouts going. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses.”
Cabel said that while the goal remains for his swimmers to go faster in the state meet, the Saints have larger goals than just recording a series of personal-best times.
“We’d like to get on the board,” Cabel said. “We didn’t do that last year. We’d like to get on the board and get back in the Top 10. I’ve never been really been inspired by moral victories. As a swimmer-athlete, the goal is always to go faster. But we also want to get them in to the Top 12 in their events.”
Cabel said the overall depth in talent in the state is exciting to see.
“It looks like it will be a close meet,” Cabel said. “If nothing else, it will be a fun meet to watch and for our kids to be a part of. New Trier may be out there a bit. But (Rooney’s) a player with his team. He didn’t shave most of his people, so he’s ready to go and we’ve got some kids who weren’t shaved either who should be ready to go.”
Shaun Seuschek is perhaps the leading Saints swimmer heading into prelims, coming off a win in the 200 individual medley at the St. Charles North Sectional.
“I thought (Seuschek) got a good time while not swimming really well,” Cabel said. “The same was true with TJ Bindseil. They had good times but they didn’t swim very well. They’ve gotten better every day this week as they’ve rested. We like what they’re saying and how they’re feeling.”
Locally, one of the top swimmers hails from Kaneland - senior Grant Alef, whose 51.73 sectional time is currently the second-best time in the event.
Alef is the only Knights swimmer to ever score in the state meet. Kaneland had a state diving champion when Jim Watson won the 1980 title. Alef finished eighth in the 100 backstroke a year ago and was also ninth in the 500 freestyle and he said at the sectional that he’s targeting Top 6 finishes in both events this year and a Top 3 finish in the backstoke.
The other local qualifier is Geneva junior Joe Hollman, who seeks to become the first Vikings swimmer since Jay Walkington in 1993 to score at the state meet. Hollman qualified in the 200 freestyle.