Girls swimming and diving: Drab is dynamic; Barrington sends Bart out with a smile
The answer is yes - St. Viator does have a diving team.
It accounted for 11 points in Saturday's state finals at Evanston Township High School, lifting the Lions into a 28th-place overall finish.
It is a team of one, and her name is Elizabeth Drab.
Making a huge leap between the results of her junior and senior year, Drab finished with 440.25 points, good for a fourth-place finish darn near the top of the pack. New Trier sophomore Jessie Creed was the champion at 462.55.
Since St. Viator's low-ceilinged pool is not suited to diving, Drab does all her training with Glenbrook Aquatics and coach Tony Santucci.
Already an elite athlete in track and field - she won the 400-meter dash in the Class 2A state championships last spring - Drab added to her diving skill set by becoming better in two specific areas: concentration and relaxation.
"I think a lot of it was just putting more time into diving," said Drab, who'd also excelled in soccer but left that behind in exhange for more time on the boards. "That just helped me really focus on what I needed to work on."
Equally important, Santucci says, was a vastly improved ability to simply relax.
"Even earlier this week, it was kind of an issue," he said. "We were talking about it Tuesday, having some very open discussions about how important that was. But she really was able to get to the right mental state today, that's for sure."
Drab drew nothing lower than a 6 on her final three dives, and nothing lower than 6.5 on her final high school effort, a back one-and-a-half in the pike position. On her first dive of the session, an inward dive in the pike position, her scores ranged between 7 and 9.
Santucci thought it may have helped that on Wednesday, Drab committed to a collegiate diving future at Connecticut (and a projected academic future in biomedical engineering).
Her coach thinks UConn is getting a diver whose best work remains ahead of her.
"You can see just looking at her, she's such an athlete," Santucci said. "I work with kids that have been diving since they were 8, 9 years old and it takes everything they've got to get to a meet like this.
"With Elizabeth, she's only a couple of years into this and she's still in phase where she's making huge gains. To be honest, I think if we had this meet another three weeks from now, she'd have placed even higher."
Barrington had been hoping for better things from the weekend, but nobody was complaining after a nice bounce-back effort Saturday following some disappointments in Friday's qualifying session.
Fillies junior Maggie Emary got things started on a positive note by improving nearly a second over her prelim time in the 200 free, coming up with a lifetime best 1:52.20, good for eighth place.
She improved on both her qualifying position and time in the 500 free as well, finishing fifth in 4:57.61.
"In the 200 in prelims, I had no legs at the end," Emary said. "So I swam it a little bit smarter, was able to build in my legs into a little bit at a time the whole way. The 500, it's just OK. It's still one of the best times I've done."
And then Barrington's free relay presented, through its performance, one of finest parting gifts retiring coach Jim Bart could have imagined.
Freshman Becca Galovich, Emary, junior Ally Penrod and sophomore Bridget O'Leary finished in 3:31.88, improving slightly on their qualifying time and jumping up 3 placement spots to finish ninth. Barrington finished in a tie for 14th place with 23 points.
"All our swims moved up today," said Bart. "Maggie was better in both, and the relay did a nice job at the end. Things went pretty well for us."
That's likely to continue, as the future is certainly bright for Barrington. One who has a special appreciation for the level of talent on the team is Galovich, who frequently shares a practice lane with Emary.
"She always knows what to expect, and she helps everybody be prepared," said Galovich. "I like how she wants to kind of take care of us. I think she's the kind of swimmer that just makes you want to swim harder."
As Barrington was competing in its relay, several members from Mid-Suburban League rival Fremd were cheering the Fillies on. Vikings coach Andrew Kittrell says he's grateful for what Bart's teams have done for MSL swimming.
"Nobody brought out better performances from us than his teams," Kittrell said. "He raised the bar, time and again, for our conference. And he never did it in a way that would call attention to himself. He's not somebody you'd ever accuse of being interested in talking about himself. Just classy - perpetually classy."
Emary says she'll miss Bart's direct communication style, which proved effective in a heart-to-heart between the coach and the team early this season.
"He basically told us he was irritated with us, and he really wanted us to pay full attention, really listen to him - just so he wouldn't have to be mad at us," Emary said. "From then on, it wasn't a problem again."
But it isn't leadership, swimming knowledge or even Bart's vast experience that Emary predicts she'll miss most.
"I think," she said with a smile, "it's all his corny jokes."
• Rosary repeated as team state champion, getting victories in both freestyle relays and from Camryn Streid in the 100 butterfly to finish comfortably on top with 185.5 points.
Bad news for the rest of the state: Of the 12 relay legs for Rosary, only two were taken by a senior, Alexis Yager. She also finished second in the 200 IM and tied for third in the 100 breast.
Urbana junior Ema Rajic broke the state record in the 200 IM, winning in 2:00.27. Later in the meet, Rajic bettered the 100 breaststroke state record she'd set in Friday's prelims with a winning time of 1:00.77.
Senior Ella Tierney won the 500 free in 4:48.45 and placed second in the 200 free to help Loyola grab the second-place trophy with 131 points.
Junior Georgia White was a champion in both the 100 and 200 freestyles as Oswego East took third with 120 points.
Oak Park sophomore Natalie Ungaretti won the 50 free (23.31), and Edwardsville senior Bailey Grinter won the 100 back (54.36).