Rosary looks ready for ‘go time’
If October is the month when girls swimmers turn their training level to its highest setting, Rosary’s annual invitational at the end of September has become an annual kick-starter to the high intensity month that follows.
“October is ‘crunchtime’ and ‘go time’ and I can’t wait,” Rosary’s Annie Gosselin said. “Practices recently have been great. We’ve been training hard. I feel like this year, we’re a stronger team. We have upper classmen and we have good team captains in Kate Canfield, Erin Hart, Jill Bottarini and Elaina Ricci.”
The Beads won their invitational this year as well, after a year in which they finished fourth. While the team victory wasn’t the burning goal that perhaps rests with hopes of winning conference or claiming a state trophy, Rosary definitely enjoyed its 346-326 victory over Naperville North in a five-team meet.
“Last year, we lost our invitational, but to come in this year and win it, I think that was great,” Gosselin said. “I think we’re all pretty happy with our performances.”
Rosary coach Bill Schalz took time prior to the meet to remind his team of the hard month that starts next week.
“I said that this is where the racing starts,” Schalz said. “This is where we’re going to start seeing better teams. This is like a mini-sectional preview. Next week, we go to Sandburg and see those teams. We’ve got Fenwick on Tuesday and Loyola coming up. So now we’re really going to start seeing really good teams.”
Four of the five teams will see each other again at the Neuqua Valley sectional on Nov. 16 — Rosary, Neuqua Valley, Naperville Central and Naperville North. Much will be different about the way teams approach that meet — but this was an early chance for each of those four teams to see each other in the same pool this fall.
“We know this is the start of really starting to race and seeing good teams,” Ricci said. “This is a good start, especially being at home and being our invitational. It gives us a good idea what we have to do in the next few weeks until conference, sectional and state.”
Gosselin was one of two swimmers to win a pair of races on Saturday when she won the 200-yard individual medley and the 100 backstroke. Naperville North’s Devin Jacobs was also a two-event winner for the runner-up Huskies.
“We had a dual meet on Thursday and I didn’t feel very well at that meet,” Gosselin said. “I felt kind of slow. But today, I felt pretty good in the water.”
Rosary’s other individual race winner was Ricci, who won the 50 freestyle.
“I think this went really well compared to last year,” Ricci said. “The practicing this week has been really hard. Everyone pulled through and had a good race. The goal is always for everyone to do well and try to win our races in this meet.”
Rosary also won the 200 medley relay and won the 200 freestyle relay in a close finish with Naperville North.
“I’ve always thought our 200 free relay was really strong,” Ricci said. “It felt great winning it by touching them out and so was everyone else.”
If none of Rosary’s performances were incredible, no one wants to see incredible performance with six weeks to go before the state series.
“We had our annual walkathon yesterday and they all ran a 10K yesterday,” Schalz said. “I think their legs were all a little tired, but I think we swam a lot better than I thought we would. I thought they were going to be dead, but they swam aggressively and did a nice job.”
After Rosary’s girls swim invitational finished Saturday at Marmion’s pool, parents wanted a group photo of all the girls who swim for the Academy Bullets club team — and swimmers from not only the host Beads but also Naperville North, Naperville Central and Neuqua Valley headed to get their photo taken.
This is more than a “neighborhood meet” that involves teams located close to each other, with the exception of Rockford Boylan. Many of these athletes train in the same water when they’re not competing for their high school teams. While that took nothing away from the intensity of swimmers wanting to win races, it led to a friendliness on-deck.
“It is fun,” Schalz said. “There’s a lot of good clubs in the area but we’re fortunate to have a lot of good swimmers on the Bullets. I wouldn’t be lying if I said that when I was watching the 200 free that when I was watching Georgia (Young) swim for Rosary, that I wasn’t watching Devin (Jacobs) swim for Naperville North too. (Naperville Central’s Kelly Lehane) and (Jacobs) were right next to each other in the 500 free. How can you watch one and not notice the other? I don’t coach the kids from the other schools, but I do watch them.”