The West Chicago High School swimming pool has been very, very good to the Waubonsie Valley girls swimming team.
For the second week in a row, the Warriors went into an invite at West Chicago, and for the second straight week Waubonsie picked up the championship trophy.
The Warriors stepped up big at this weekend's Wildcat Championship, which was run in the state meet format with prelims held on Friday and finals on Saturday.
Waubonsie scored 277 points to top the second-place Bartlett-Streamwood Sabrehawks, which scored 216. The host West Chicago/Batavia co-op team was third with 185, followed by Glenbard West/South co-op with 170.
Waubonsie also won the title at last week's Wildcat Invitational at West Chicago.
"This was a really great meet for us," said Waubonsie Valley coach Katie Peterson. "Because the girls got the feeling of what it's like at state, where you have to swim fast on Friday, and then if you make the top 12, you have to go out and do it again on Saturday."
In winning this weekend's championship, the Warriors were victorious in both the 200 medley relay and the 200 freestyle relay.
"We've been showing a lot of improvement during the year," said Hannah Hunt, who was a member of both winning relay teams and also took first in the 100 breaststroke. "Today showed our depth and how many good younger swimmers we have coming up."
Hunt was joined on the 200 medley relay by Avery Mathew, Julia Burling and Alexa Steffl and on the 200 free relay by Steffl, Emma Tinney and Mathew.
"We were pumped coming into this meet," Tinney said. "And then when we did well on Friday everything intensified on Saturday."
Peterson is pleased with the Warriors depth and the performance of the two relay teams.
"With all of the freshmen and sophomores challenging for positions, it keeps everyone on their toes," Peterson said. "It also gives us the opportunity to try new things by having girls swim new events. The two relays are solid, and we'll be experimenting all season to fill the spots on the 400 free relay on our sectional team."
While the Warriors won only three races, their point total was fueled by numerous top-six finishes.
Steffl was second in both the 50 freestyle and the 100 butterfly, Tinney was second in the 100 free and third in the 200 free and Paige Simspon was second in the 200 IM and third in the 100 breaststroke.
West Chicago/Batavia, another team with a number of underclassmen playing important roles, finished strong with a furious late push in the 400 free relay, only to be touched out by the Sabrehawks 3:41.72 to 3:41.88.
West Chicago/Batavia's 400 free team consisted of freshman Ula Konopko, Natalie Nelson, Lindsay Bruce and Myanna Cook.
"We did a great job in that last race," said West Chicago/Batavia coach Nick Parry. "We were short by just about 2 feet. The thing that impressed me is that, in most events, we either maintained or improved our places from Friday to Saturday."
Cook finished second in the 100 backstroke and third in the 100 butterfly.
"Cook is our stud," Perry said. "She's very competitive and she hates to lose."
Bruce finished second in the 500 freestyle and Nelson was third in the 50 freestyle.
Other outstanding performances were turned in by Lake Park's Jennifer Hauser, who was second in the 100 breaststroke, and Glenbard North/East co-op's Heather Rady was third in the 100 freestyle.
The second-place Sabrehawks were led by Kayla Filipek, who won both the 100 and the 200 free and also swam the first leg of the victorious 400 freestyle relay team, which included Meagan Cummins, Brianna Cichon and Allison Marsh. Marsh was third in the 500 freestyle. Kelly Byrne finished third in the 200 IM. The Sabrehawks were second in the 200 freestyle relay.
"We figured Kayla would go out and get the lead in the first leg," said Sabrehawks coach Jeremy Meserole. "The other girls who came after her knew that it was their job to hold the lead. Our whole team responded to the excitement of the prelim-final format. They really got up and raced well today."