St. Charles East wins meet against 'best friends'
Rarely does the atmosphere for a swimming dual meet reach the noise level of Thursday's St. Charles North-St. Charles East girls encounter at East's Norris Center pool.
In fact, the Saints and North Stars don't always generate the cacophony their pink-clad fans created on a night dedicated to swimming and also in support of the fight against breast cancer.
In the pool, St. Charles East won 103-82, but a variety of fundraising efforts netted more than $2,000, said St. Charles East coach Joe Cabel.
"The meet comes where we're approaching halfway," Cabel said. "It's good to see what we can do at this time. We had some great times. There were some good buddies racing out there against each other."
Cabel said there are swimmers on each team who have battled breast cancer, and seemingly everyone on-deck wore a shirt that read "Outswimming breast cancer one stroke at a time."
"We have a mother on the team who had breast cancer and we're giving back to the same fund she worked with, the Susan G. Komen Fund," St. Charles North coach Rob Rooney said.
Like all teams, the Saints and North Stars are training heavily when not in competition. Both teams had morning practices and each team swam yardage prior to the meet in their own pool. Then the North Stars headed to the Norris Center, competed and both teams swam additional yardage after the meet.
As a result, while there was fast swimming, none of the times threatened personal bests or team records.
"We swam flat, which is good for me," Rooney said. "I'm not overly worried about a dual meet right now. We've got a different vibe and perspective right now. We're trying to paint our picture for the end right now."
Within the context of the meet lineups, the distance swimmers were challenged with swimming the 200-yard freestyle and then three of the meet's final five events, the 500 freestyle, the 200 free relay and the meet-ending 400 free relay.
"It's nothing compared to the 8,000 (yards) they do in practice," Cabel said. "When you think about it, it's 800 yards and they do 8,000. If you're a distance person, you don't fear that. A sprinter has a little problem going back to back to back."
St. Charles North's Monica Guyett and St. Charles East's Amy Pearson dueled in the distance races. Guyett won the 200 free in 1:54.79 while Pearson finished in 1:55.14.
"We've been doing a lot of yardage in practice," Guyett said. "Rooney said we need to swim down and be ready for the races. I felt a little tired, but it's only midseason. My times are the best they've been in midseason."
Guyett won the 500 free with Pearson again second and the North Stars followed with victory in the 200 free relay with Guyett teaming with sister Audrey Guyett, Jillian Waslawski and Grace Samuelson.
Pearson and teammates Jordan Morling, Izzie Herb and Anna O'Malley won the 400 free relay.
"We do really hard sets in practice," Pearson said. "It seems hard at the time. But you come back to the meets, and it's so much easier than practice. Plus it's more fun, and you have the crowd here. You get really hyped up."
Katie Nagler had a strong meet for St. Charles East, winning the 100 free and finishing second in the 50 free
"We were just so spirited and supporting each other," Nagler said. "I think that's probably the leading factor to why we won this meet."
Freshman Waslawski won the 50 free for the North Stars in her first East-North dual meet.
"I was just excited for this meet," Waslawski said. "There was a lot of adrenaline moving through me. Everyone knew each other. There was a lot of competition, but it was just fun. We're all best friends, but when you get in the pool, it's race time."
Other North Stars winners included Audrey Guyett in the 200 IM and Katie Schutz in diving. The Saints' Morling won the 100 butterfly, Herb was first in the 100 back and Kayla Jones was victorious in the 100 breast.