St. Charles East is best at St. Charles North

From the early morning until late afternoon, St. Charles East's boys swimmers and divers not only placed highly at the St. Charles North sectional, but swam faster than the state qualifying standards.

Long before the meet was over, it was clear the Saints were going to claim their second sectional title in three years, and St. Charles East finished with a 284.5-232 victory over the host North Stars.

"The guys swam really well today," St. Charles East coach Joe Cabel said. "It was a great sectional. There were a lot of fast people here. I think the competition today with DeKalb and West Chicago and Wheaton and everybody here was strong. We had competition in every race."

With all the experienced swimmers with previous qualifications for the boys state swim meet, one of the great stories for St. Charles East came in the form of freshman Matt Nagler.

Nagler swam on all three Saints relays - and helped each qualify for the state meet. Then in his lone individual event, Nagler won the 50-yard freestyle. Nagler dropped more than six-tenths of a second to win the 50 freestyle, a massive time drop for such a short race.

"I think it's going to be fun and I'm really excited to go there and race," Nagler said. "I did not expect I would have a chance of making it. But everyone helped me - my teammates, my coaches and my family."

The Saints opened the swimming portion of the day knowing one of their teammates - diver Andrew Lewarchick - had already qualified, scoring a pool-record 499.60 to finish first in a talented group that included three other previous qualifiers.

"It's a huge boost, knowing that he had done that," Nagler said.

Nagler is part of a massive group of Saints state qualifiers for the state meet, which takes place next weekend in Evanston. In addition to all three relays, Kyle Dunlap qualified in the 200 freestyle and the 100 freestyle; John Tarpey qualified in the 200 IM and the 100 backstroke; Mitch Milosch qualified in the 100 butterfly and the 100 backstroke; Nick Boryk qualified in the 200 freestyle; John Cranfill advanced in the 100 butterfly while Nick Milosch advanced in the 100 breaststroke as well as the aforementioned Nagler and Lewarchick.

The vast majority of those Saints swimmers weren't rested for Saturday's meet, leaving hope for a strong performance in the state meet, when their resting "taper" takes full effect and large time drops will be expected.

"We tried to swim through the meet this year," Cabel said. "It worked. We were close in a lot of events. Our guys who (tapered) did great and dropped a lot of time. Our other guys came in and swam aggressively and got their cuts. They had to do that because the cuts in our state are tough."

Throughout the sectional, St. Charles North was right on schedule, setting itself well for the state meet. The 200 medley relay qualified, and the 200 freestyle relay nearly broke the pool record. Joe Myhre did break the pool record when he broke Curtis Dauw's 2005 mark in the 100 freestyle. Caymus Cairns won the 500 freestyle and William Myhre won the 100 breaststroke.

Then the North Stars fell narrowly shy of qualifying in the final event of the day, the 400 freestyle relay, which led to a quiet post-meet pool deck area for the hosts.

"For 11 events, I was really excited," St. Charles North coach Rob Rooney said. "One event broke my heart. It's simple."

The North Stars expect Michael Burke to qualify as an at-large diver as well.

"Monday, we'll clear our minds and we'll come back at it," Rooney said, who added that Cairns' performance in the 500 freestyle was "awesome."

But there was no denying the hurt the North Stars felt following the meet. While a strong finish in the state meet is still possible, their trophy chances have all but vanished.

"As a coach, I've been through a lot - up, down, all over," Rooney said. "But that last 400 yards - I never saw that coming."

The West Chicago/Batavia co-op was fifth as a team and has six entries qualified for Friday's state prelims. Garret Clasen and Cooper Hawkins both qualified in both the 200 IM and the 100 breaststroke. Ryan Sego advanced in the 100 butterfly and the coop added its 200 medley relay to a solid qualifying group.

"As a whole, I think we were very successful," West Chicago/Batavia coach Nicole Cleveland said. "Of the four boys who qualified on the medley relay, three are sophomores."

Hawkins, a senior, and Sego, a sophomore, are first-time qualifiers. Clasen, another of the team's sophomores, qualified last year in the 200 IM and 100 breaststroke and finished 11th in the 200 IM.

"This is a great way for (Hawkins) to go out as a senior, by swimming at the state meet," Cleveland said. "(Clasen), his meet is really next weekend. He struggled a little bit today, but we told him he wasn't fully-tapered and we'd get him there, and he got everything we expected him to qualify in."

While Geneva did not qualify any swimmers, the Vikings finished solidly in seventh place. Freshman Payton Glod narrowly missed qualifying in the 50 freestyle while senior Eric Dallesasse came close to advancing in the 100 butterfly.

At Metea Valley: Marmion qualified two freestyle relay teams for state and the Cadets also received qualifying swims from sophomore William Kamps in the 200 IM and the 500 free, Nolan Fergus in the 100 butterfly and Gary Rockwood in the 100 breaststroke.

"Kamps is our stud," said Marmion coach Bill Schalz. "We expect big things from him. Next year, if he gets the wind in his sails a little bit, he can go top six in both events."

Tyler McLaren's 1:57.75 in the 200 IM gave West Aurora its first swimming state qualifier since 2006 (the Blackhawks qualified a diver in 2010).

"Tyler has worked his butt off," said West Aurora coach Chris Ranallo. "He missed by a second last year so he came back really determined. His goal is to score by his senior year."

"I feel that I accomplished my main goal which was to qualify for state," said McLaren. "My dad, who swam for West Aurora for four years, passed away two years ago. And he has been the biggest motivator for me. The first thing I thought of when I qualified was my dad and how proud he would be."

At Stevenson: Cary-Grove was fifth with 157 points and was led by Cooper Langanis, who took second in the 200 freestyle (1:42.95) and 500 freestyle (4:40.48), good enough to advance to state. He also played a key role on two runner-up relay teams that also qualified - the 200 freestyle relay (1:26.46) and 400 freestyle relay (3:10.15).

"It's nice for us, because we go a lot of our season not swimming against top teams, and then coming here where everyone is good or even better than us pushes us to go a lot faster," Langanis said.

Added his coach, Rich Schaeffer, who is in his last season before moving to Florida: "It's a phenomenal accomplishment to watch those kids grow over 4 years and become the best in school history. I couldn't be more proud of them."

Neil Shalin and Gregg Voss contributed to this report.