Barrington withstands Fremd’s improved effort
Parents cheering to the point of voices breaking.
Standing ovations for the final lap of the 400-meter freestyle — the junior varsity 400-meter freestyle, that is.
And pure silence when the final scores were read.
Welcome to The Rivalry.
Or, rather, welcome back to it.
Barrington’s girls swimming and diving team had taken some of the fun out of it with an 84-point victory over Fremd last season, but a much improved Vikings group showed Wednesday this rivalry is alive and well again.
Visiting Barrington prevailed 105-81 thanks mainly to a decisive team edge in the sprint freestyles.
Senior Erika Elliott won the 50 and 100 freestyles, her sister Danielle won the 200 free and was second in the 100, and the sisters Elliott swam both legs on Barrington’s winning 200 and 400 freestyle relays.
“It’s always a fun atmosphere for this meet,” said Erika Elliott, “because, I mean, it’s Barrington-Fremd. You know people will be excited.”
Other victories for the Fillies came from Mekenna Scheitlin (200 IM and 100 breaststroke) and Justine Kaszynski (100 fly).
“We just talked about, ‘Let’s see a lot of red caps finishing ahead of green caps,’” said Barrington coach Jim Bart. “This is always a meet where the most important thing is to really race, and our kids did a good job of that.”
There was no shortage of highlights for Fremd. Seniors Stephanie Uhrich (216.40), Elizabeth Uhrich (202.75) and freshman Sydney Plicha led a 1-2-3 diving sweep.
And freshman Erica King won both the 400 free (4:34.40) and 100 backstroke (1:08.14), combining with teammate Kayleen Samuels for a 1-2 finish in the latter.
Fremd’s problem, according to coach Andrew Kittrell, might have been just a little too much excitement during the first four or five events.
“We had a few things early in the meet — kids forgetting to take a breath and going into oxygen debt, little technique details here and there — and I think maybe we just needed to settle down a little bit,” Kittrell said. “We had a much better second half of the meet.
“I’m extremely pleased with how it went for us. We put a lot of emphasis on this meet as nothing but an opportunity for something positive to happen.”
Kittrell cited strong swims from junior Breanna Anderson and senior Amy McEllen as evidence that Fremd has taken a big step forward.
“After last season, we had a group of girls who really made a shift in the right direction,” he said. “That’s showing up now.”
Especially on the scoreboard. At the varsity level, that would be a 56-point improvement over last year for Fremd.