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Barrington 3rd, St. Charles North 4th at SCN invite

While there are still many days until the boys swimming postseason begins, area teams are nearly finished with their regular season schedules, and that meant Saturday's St. Charles North Invitational was an opportunity for athletes to make one final impression on their coaches.

The North Stars' annual invitational brings together an eclectic group of schools. Meet champion Dunlap, runner-up Peoria Notre Dame, Champaign Central and Normal U-High came from the south. Byron, Rockton Hononegah and Rockford Boylan came from the west while Barrington and Libertyville drove south to the North Stars pool.

The meet is also known for its expansive entry format: schools may enter four swimmers per event, meaning an entire squad gets a chance to put competitive swims together before the end of the regular season.

Barrington scored 288 points and finished third in the meet. Dunlap and Peoria Notre Dame scored 317 and 308 points, respectively.

"A lot of these downstate teams, we would never see them until state," Barrington coach John Valentine said. "We can kind of learn how they do things and how they handle things. That's really a benefit for the whole team."

The Broncos had winners in two events: Mitch Gavars won the 500-yard freestyle while Colin O'Leary won the 100 backstroke.

"The majority of our team is sophomores," Valentine said. "That being said, we've got some great sophomores, like Colin O'Leary and Mitch Gavars. It's kind of a building year, but we got some outstanding swims and we're getting incrementally better every week."

Barrington has a Friday meet against Palatine before concentrating on its training for this year's postseason meets. Other top performances Saturday included the 200 medley relay, which placed second, O'Leary's third-place swim in the 100 butterfly and Colin Cross' third-place finish in the 100 breaststroke.

"Our splits today off the two free relays will go a long way to determining who steps up on the blocks for the varsity at the sectional," Valentine said. "It really is the defining moment for some of these guys."

The hosts scored 252 points and finished fourth in their final competition before the postseason, which aims toward the Feb. 27-28 state meet at New Trier.

"The second half of the meet, I was much happier with the team than I was in the first half," St. Charles North coach Rob Rooney said. "I thought the enthusiasm in supporting each other was much better the second half of the meet."

The North Stars were busy this week, starting with Tuesday's rescheduled dual meet with St. Charles East and continued Thursday with a Thursday dual meet against the Elgin-Larkin coop.

"We're going to be all right, I know it," Rooney said. "You're going to see us do great things in the next couple of weeks."

St. Charles North won one of the 12 events when Joe Myhre touched first in the 50-yard freestyle. Myhre finished second in the 100 freestyle.

"It's exciting having this here at our pool, which we're familiar with," Myhre said. "Having these really good teams come here, it's good to race against them. You really get pumped.

Diver Mike Burke finished third while Stephen Hutchinson was fifth in the 50 freestyle and eighth in the 100 butterfly.

While still not swimming his fastest groups in either freestyle relay, the North Stars performed well. The 200 freestyle relay was fourth and the 400 freestyle relay was third.

"Our bread and butter is going to be our two free relays and our freestyle races," Rooney said. "There's no doubt about it. That's where we're shining right now. That's a positive."

Libertyville finished fifth and had its strongest swims from Matt Harrington, who was second in the 200 freestyle and fourth in the 100 butterfly.

"They got to see a lot of fast guys today who they don't get to see all the time, which is awesome," Libvertyville coach Mike Cunningham said. "(Harrington's) been working at it, and those are near his season-best times. To come back and swim like they did today after we hammered it pretty hard in training, was awesome."

The Wildcats' freestyle relays also performed well. The 200 freestyle relay was third and the 400 freestyle relay was second.

"I think 25 out of 30 of our swims were season-best times," Cunningham said. "Our relays had a lot of fast times. They're beaten up from the training, and some of our top guys are beaten down more because they've been pushing it harder."

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