Cary-Grove's Hare will swim at state; Marmion qualifies 5

Cary-Grove senior Ethan Hare admitted he was battling the highs and lows of the emotions that come with sectional boys swimming qualifying Saturday at Barrington. The highs came early on as Hare dropped over 5 seconds to earn a state qualifying mark in the 200 free (1:44.01).

The state finals are next weekend in Evanston.

"I was really nervous going into that 200," Hare said. "I thought going in that was my least likely chance to qualify so when I got that I just went crazy."

The highs got even higher as he along with teammates Omid Babakhani, Cameron Castro, and Kolin Fadden swam a state qualifying and school record time of 1:27.62 to earn a berth in the 200 free relay.

"It's so cool going down with a relay," Hare said. "Last year I only went down with a relay. Honestly, it's so nice to go individually, but I would take relays over that any day because it is so much more fun to do it with your friends."

The only downside for Hare and the Trojans came in the final event - the 400 free relay. The same foursome that qualified in the 200 relay, narrowly missed in the 400 despite swimming 3:13.61 and dropping over 3 seconds from the seed time.

Cary-Grove finished third as a team with 175.5 points.

- Jeff Newton

At Neuqua Valley: Marmion qualified five individuals and two relay teams out of the Neuqua Valley sectional.

The 200 free relay team of William Kamps, Nolan Fergus, Gary Rockwood and Sam Wehrli finished fifth and the 400 free relay team of Kamps, Fergus, Henry Bliss and Wehrli did the same.

Individual qualifiers for the Cadets included Kamps in the 200 free and the 500 free, Fergus in the 200 IM and the butterfly, Wehrli in the 50 free, Nathan Kuszynski in the 500 free and Rockwood in the breaststroke.

Tyler McLaren of West Aurora qualified in the 200 IM and the Blackhawks' Owen Zant will swim at state inn the backstroke.