Fond finishes for Mundelein's Falconer, Kordik

Winning medals is always nice.

It goes a little deeper than that, though, for the Mundelein girls swimming team.

"Years from now no one will remember if you won or what place you took," said senior Erin Falconer, who capped a brilliant career by qualifying individually for state in the 100 and 200 freestyle all four years. "The main thing I'm going to remember is having fun and the camaraderie we have on this team. That's what I'll miss the most."

Falconer, along with fellow seniors Rachel Robb, Jennifer Kordik, Aijan Urmat, and Lauren Blake have certainly all helped keep Mundelein swimming on the map, especially after their performance this weekend at girls swimming and diving state finals at Evanston Township High School.

"We are definitely building this program," said Mundelein coach Rahul Sethna, whose squad followed up with a fifth-place effort last year by taking eighth this weekend. "We're obviously losing a lot of seniors, but the standard has been set."

And Falconer was unquestionably a large part of that standard. On Saturday, she finished third in the 200 freestyle with time of 1:51.15. She followed up with a second-place finish in the 100 freestyle, where she swam a 50.43.

"I didn't feel right in my first event (the 200 freestyle)," Falconer said. "I think I was a little tired. I'm not a real emotional person, but I'm glad it's over. It's been a great experience and we love swimming for coach Sethna."

Kordik, who will swim for Wisconsin-Milwaukee next year, was quick to echo her teammate's sentiments.

"This has been wonderful. I'm very blessed to be here and to swim with Erin all four years has been tremendous," said Kordik, who delivered a third-place finish in the 100 breaststroke with a time of 1:04.32.

Kordik, who also finished 11th in the 200 IM (2:06.45), joined Falconer, Urmat and Robb in finishing 11th in the 200 freestyle relay in 1:37.66. Blake then joined Falconer, Robb, and Kordik for the 400 freestyle relay, where they took 10th with a time of 3:32.50.

Libertyville turned in another solid appearance at state with junior Macey Neubauer finishing 12th in the 100 breaststroke in 1:05.46. Neubauer joined sophomores Meredith Robbins and Emma Richert and fellow junior Staci Herchenbach to finish 10th in the 200 medley relay (1:47.20).

"This was really exciting having a relay and an individual make it to the finals," Libertyville coach Erik Rogers said. "And our 200 and 400 relay teams both broke school records yesterday in the preliminaries. We won the conference for the first time since 1988, so it's been a really successful season."

Sophomore Courtney Barker did Warren proud after collecting a sixth-place medal in the championship heat of the 50 freestyle.

"It's really nice to make it individually to the finals," said Barker, who swam a 23.92. "It was a good race for me. I had a good start but my turns could have been better."

Grant sophomore Anhelina Kutsko and Lakes senior Madison Rinaldi also did their schools proud.

Kutsko took home ninth-place hardware after swimming a 56.58 in the 100 butterfly, while Rinaldi took home a 10th-place medal after swimming a 57.24 in the 100 backstroke.

Loyola Academy won the team title with 148 points, while Mundelein was eighth with 49.