St. Charles North takes 2nd at own invite

For the past two weeks, St. Charles North's girls swim team has done some serious training without any competitive interruptions. The North Stars went a midseason fortnight without dual meets or invitationals.

That training-only period ended Saturday when the North Stars hosted the 15th annual St. Charles North Invitational, and they showed the hard work is paying off with a second-place finish to Neuqua Valley.

"We're doing all right," St. Charles North coach Rob Rooney said. "We've got a good head on our shoulders. October's always a tough month with a lot going on, from homecomings and other things. You start the season and it's all excitement. Then you hit the meat of the season, and it's like you're entrenched."

The North Stars had a series of high-end performances. Monica Guyett won the 200-yard freestyle and the 500 freestyle. Her sister Audrey Guyett was second in the 200 IM and won the 100 free. Grace Samuelson was fourth in the 200 free and fourth in the 500 free.

"I felt strong in the water and I felt we did very good as a team," Audrey Guyett said. "It was a lot of fun today. We've had a lot of tough practices, but it's October, so you've got to have those. I love competition."

The Guyett sisters, Samuelson and Samantha Sauer combined for an emphatic victory in the meet-ending 400 freestyle relay, the first time that quartet had competed together. Those swimmers figure to be the team's postseason relay combination.

"I think I did pretty well overall," Samuelson said. "We're all pretty tired, and we're all swimming tired, but I think we did well overall considering the training we've been doing. I'm excited to see how fast we'll all be able to go by the end of the season."

Samuelson, Sauer, Monica Guyett and Hannah Olsen combined to finish third in the 200 freestyle relay.

"I was really excited for the relays," Samuelson said. "Those are my favorite things to do. They're fun and they get me hyped up. My individual events probably need a little more enthusiasm."

The St. Charles North Invitational has grown since its first year, when it took place in West Chicago as the North Stars pool was yet to be finished in the school's first year of existence. This year, 14 teams participated, including schools such as Glenbrook North, Hinsdale Central, Normal U-High and Lincoln-Way East.

"I like the teams and the mix," Rooney said. "I like seeing different teams. I'm really happy that Glenbrook and Hinsdale (Central) and Neuqua - they've been with this from the start. Other teams added as we've gone on, and it's a good invite."

The West Chicago-Batavia co-op finished ninth. The team's best performance was a fifth-place finish by Lindsay Bruce in the 200 freestyle.

"We're very young," West Chicago-Batavia coach Nick Parry said. "We've got one senior, a pair of juniors and our main contributors are a bunch of freshmen and sophomores. With that, we're going to have some ups and downs, and today was one of the downer ones."

In addition to Bruce, West Chicago-Batavia's Myanna Cook was eighth in the 100 backstroke and ninth in the 100 butterfly.

"We're struggling to learn to swim fast in-season when you're not feeling your best," Parry said. "We're in a long training process and trying to get that cleaned up as we go."

Parry said he has six Batavia swimmers, including Cook, on his 22-person team.

"We have a nice group that we have that comes from Batavia," Parry said. "We'd love to have more from Batavia, but we're still kind of an unknown over there. They don't have a pool, so they don't see (swimming) like the kids at West Chicago do on a daily basis."