Rosary Invite: Friendly, fun - and fast

There was plenty of love on deck at Marmion High School's pool on Saturday, which hosted Rosary's annual girls swim invitational.

That's because the field - the host Beads, Naperville Central, Naperville North and Neuqua Valley - are pretty familiar with each other.

"This is a little different," Rosary assistant coach Ken Carlson said. "The Naperville schools are here. They know a lot of the girls. As soon as a lot of those other girls come in to warm up, they're hugging them and saying hi to them."

The competition was just as deep as the love, however. The four teams involved in this will form the elite group at Neuqua Valley's Nov. 15 sectional meet and all are likely to be in the top 10 at the Nov. 21-22 state meet.

"It's a fun meet," Naperville Central assistant coach Sue Welker said. "It's a pre-sectional meet in a way. There are a lot of fast swimmers here. It's a chance for our girls to be up against the best. Many of these girls are going to be in the top three at state. So this is a humbling and a rewarding experience all at the same time."

Rosary won the meet, scoring 420 points. In order, the other powerhouses finished: Neuqua Valley (307), Naperville North (296) and Naperville Central (198).

"We were slow off the blocks today," Carlson said. "But the girls got up and swam. It's a tough part of the season because the girls are tired. They're still getting into the swing of things for school and training too."

Saturday's times were exceptional given the tired state of most of the athletes. The slowest swimmer in the 500 freestyle swam 5:31. Competition on a race-by-race basis was also strong.

Of many competitive races was that 500 freestyle. Naperville North's Lauren Bogle and Neuqua Valley's Amanda Childs fought the entire race, before Bogle won in 5:15.45, just .07 ahead of Childs.

"That's her best time ever," Naperville North coach Kate Toennis said of Bogle. "When we swam against Neuqua, she was against (Childs) again, and touched her out again. It says something that (Bogle) likes to race."

The nature of Rosary's Invitational is somewhat unique. With four teams in the field, there were only one or two heats per event and the meet moved swiftly from start to finish.

"It's a hard meet to swim because girls are swimming three or four events and the turnaround is fast," Toennis said. "They've got sometimes five minutes between events, which makes it like a training session. But I thought they did well."

Neuqua Valley's state group is young this season, but talented, which left coach Jennifer Heyer-Olson pleased following the meet.

"We have 16 girls on the varsity squad, and seven of them are new to varsity," Heyer-Olson said. "My biggest focus is developing them and getting them to focus and to know how the training works. But I couldn't be happier with this group of girls. They work well together and are really team-spirited."

Young though they may be, the Wildcats proved that when it is time to race, they were prepared.

"They swam so well today," Heyer-Olson said. "It was totally beyond my expectations. And they performed as a team."

Rosary was withoug Kally Fayhee and Elisabeth Tavierne, both on college visits.

"We had to mix up our relays," Carlson said. "Some of those freshman and sophomore girls who are on B relays had to step up and swim them. For some of them, it's the first big meet of their careers."