Schaumburg's ready for work
Going into the holiday break is kind of a good news-bad news situation for area swimmers.
Sure, the two weeks off of school will be great -- but it's anything but a break from training.
On Thursday, the Mid-Suburban League got its last conference meets in before hitting the pool for some long, hard yardage and training over the holidays.
At Schaumburg, the Saxons won eight events to defeat Hoffman Estates 107-78.
"We've got a little time over Christmas break -- we've got to get our problems fixed," said Hoffman Estates coach Josh Schumacher, who's hoping his team emerges from the training not only faster, but also much improved in its starts, turns and finishes.
"We can stay up with a lot of teams between the flags but those starts and turns kill us every time."
Pat Mason won two events for the Hawks with his swims in the 200- (1:55.28) and 100-yard (52.22) freestyles.
Other Hoffman Estates wins came from Ishan Trivedi in the 500 (5:25.80) and Alex Jessee in the backstroke (1:03.34).
"We swam well," Schumacher said. "We had a couple best times. We had some guys step up. We just got out-swam. Schaumburg did a heck of a job today."
The Saxons' win was truly a team effort.
Aaron Johnson took part in four Schaumburg firsts. Individually, he won the IM (2:14.03) and breaststroke (1:05.31).
Johnson anchored the 400 free relay (3:38.18) with Mike Kehoe, Mark Rosenblum and Kevin Case. Kehoe, Johnson, John Darovec and Rosenblum won the 200 free relay in 1:40.45. Rosenblum added a 1:05.74 win in the butterfly.
"They swam extremely well," said Schaumburg coach Tom Gallagher. "I'm very pleased. We're working with great intensity. Lots and lots is being demanded of them, and they came through really well. We didn't back off for the meet at all. It was definitely a team performance."
Kehoe added a win in 50 (24.95) and was second in the 100 free (54.88).
"It wasn't bad," said Kehoe of his team's win. "We swam pretty well. We all had great times. Everybody was getting best times. We've got to keep it going. We've got miles to go before we can sleep, as coach always tells us."
Beginning the Saxons' sweep of the relays were Andrew Cinelli, Brad Dunn, Darovec and Joseph Filetti with a 1:57.90 in the medley relay. Joe Buckley scored 176.50 points to win diving.
With the meet out of the way, it will be back to the lanes first thing in the morning.
"I told them, training camp starts tomorrow," Gallagher said.
• Prospect's depth paid off against Wheeling with a 123-62 win. Matt Reiner won the 100 free (54.13), Joe Lakner the back (1:04.10) and Andrew Bowman the breaststroke (1:09.29) for the Knights. Alan Sears and Erik Maczko were two-event winners for the Wildcats.
• Adrian Sadkowski and Jeff Grossich both won two individual events to lead Buffalo Grove in a 129-53 win over Elk Grove. Damian Zabielski went 1:10.62 to win the breaststroke for the Grenadiers.
• Varun Shivakumar won the butterfly (1:23.92) and backstroke (1:02.20) for Fremd in the Vikings' 117-69 win over Conant.