Girls swimming: Fremd finishes on top

Of the eight individual events contested in Saturday's Mid-Suburban League girls swimming championships at Barrington, only one of them had a winner from Fremd.

That was senior Saki Takumiya in the 100-yard butterfly.

But this Fremd team is clearly more than the sum of its parts.

The Vikings won the medley and 200 free relays, and no Fremd invidual entry finished lower than sixth place. That kind of consistency combined with a touch of misfortune for Barrington helped the Vikings claim the MSL title for a third straight year.

Fremd finished with 305 points to Barrington's 260.

"I don't think there was a single race where my kids weren't ready to contest the outcome," said Fremd coach Andrew Kittrell. "And we needed that, because Barrington is just that good."

Top efforts for Fremd came from Grace Kneller (2nd in the 100 free, 3rd in the 50), Grace Grzybek (2nd in the 100 back, 3rd in the 200 IM), Erica King (2nd in the 200 free, 3rd in the 500 free), Rebecca Ballo (2nd in the 100 breast, 6th in the 200 IM), Julia Portmann (3rd in the 200 free, 5th in the 100 fly) and Loretta Stelnicki (4th in the 50 free and three relay legs).

And the Vikings got a big emotional boost from Emily Kini in the 100 free. Clad in a fast suit and fully rested for the meet, she lopped a couple of seconds off her previous best, placing third in 53.27.

The misfortune for Barrington came early, as freshman Maggie Emary was disqualified in what would have been a second-place finish in the 200 free. That made it an uphill battle the rest of the way in an effort to keep pace with Fremd.

Race-by-race results were still very good for the Fillies - including for Emary, who ended up winning the 500 free in 5:04.72, just ahead of freshman teammate Maggie Menso (5:04.96) in a 1-2 Barrington finish. Both bettered the state qualifying standard in the event.

Barrington boasted a pair of double individual champs: senior Andrea Vega in the 200 IM (2:09.13) and 100 breaststroke (1:07.49), and junior Kirsten Jacobsen in the 100 (52.32) and 200 (1:51.67) freestyles.

The Fillies certainly had a feel-good ending to the meet, as Emma Barnett, Sara Kate Capel, Emary and Jacobsen won the 400 free relay in a season-best 3:34.71. And three Barrington swimmers - Menso, Catie Olson and Kelsey Holmes - were fully rested for the meet and enjoyed career-best times.

"We swam really well," said Barrington coach Jim Bart. "There's no doubt we had the wind taken out of our sails a little bit early, but I'm not disappointed at all with how our kids performed."

Menso is in a tough spot because Barrington's strength is distance freestyle. This was her last meet of the season, as Emary and two-time defending state champ Jacobsen will compete in the 500 free at sectional and state.

But the Barrington freshman had no trouble putting on a happy face after her effort.

"It's OK, really," she said. "I'm happy with my time, and that's what counts."

Wheeling senior Theresa Godlewski produced a crowd-pleasing performance, repeating as conference champ in both the 50 free (24.21) and 100 back (56.93) in career-best times.

The backstroke mark broke the pool record and set off howls of delight from Wheeling's fans, which on this occasion included some extended family - aunts, uncles and cousins to Godlewski, visiting from Wisconsin.

What pleased Godlewski most, however, was the performance of Wheeling's 200 free relay. Godlewski provided a blazing 23.37 anchor split, following Shannon Richards, Jenna Pink and Adrienne Rozmus as the Wildcats placed sixth in a team-record 1:44.37.

"I'll take a relay record over an individual record any day," said Godlewski. "When you do it as a group like that, it's just more special because it took all of us."

It took all of Prospect's effort to equal the program's best-ever MSL finish, third place. The MSL East champs finished with 158 points to prevail in a tightly packed group that included Palatine (145), Conant (143) and Hersey (124.5).

Key for Prospect were season-best efforts from junior Betsy Rozow, who finished 5th in the 100 back (1:00.72) and 6th in the 50 free (24.93).

"For us, the challenge was to be consistently getting both our swimmers to score in the individual races," said Knights coach Alfonso Lopez. "We did that enough - and Betsy's swims really made the difference for us."

Palatine got big points from junior Kristin Anderson (2nd in 50 free, 4th in 100 free) and Lily Zahn (2nd in 100 fly, 4th 200 free). The Pirates also got a nice scoring jolt from the freestyle relays - 2nd in the 200, and 3rd in the 400 - and enjoyed a day loaded with best efforts.

"We had about 90 percent best times," said Palatine coach Brittany Berleman, who pointed to Zahn's fly time (59.12) and an eighth-place effort from Mathilde Mogensen in the 200 IM (2:19.83) as the day's most pleasant surprises.

Conant's highlights included the highest conference finish yet in the impressive career for senior Allison Cicero. She placed second in the 200 IM (2:11.72) and fourth in the 500 free (5:15.85). The Cougas also got top-six finishes from Paulina Wolska (200 free, 5th) and Lea Cejvan (100 breast, 4th).

Hersey's top finisher was freshman Olivia Kusio (3rd in 100 breast).

Buffalo Grove senior Sarah Morosan cracked the top six in the 100 free (56.34, 6th), and sophomore Alexa Jedryka did likewise in the 500 free (5:34.14, sixth).