Dominant Rosary eliminates any drama

Throughout last weekend's state girls swim meet, a pair of Evanston relay alternates knitted. One knitted blue and the other orange - the Wilkins school colors - like some aquatic Madame Defarge from Charles Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities."

And it certainly was the best of times for area swimmers, who showed that some of the state's best work in the waters of Kane County pools.

State meets in sports such as swimming or track are actually a number of mini-meets rolled into one. There is competition in each individual race as well as the team title chase to be considered.

Last weekend, the state girls swim meet had practically no drama where the championship trophy was concerned. Rosary had an explosive series of swims in the Friday prelims, then swam just a little bit better on Saturday to complete a mauling of the competition. In fact, the margin of victory by the Beads over joint second-place finishers New Trier and Hinsdale Central was equal to the largest ever.

And perhaps that was the biggest surprise. As this reporter mentioned to a handful of coaches, including Waubonsie Valley's Tom Schweer, the expectation had been for a close meet. New Trier tapered very well in 2007 and gained massive ground on Rosary. Any slip, it seemed, and the Trevians would have been in firm contention for first place.

And Rosary had a potential catastrophe to contend with when Olivia Scott was disqualified in the 100-butterfly prelims. And the Beads still won by over 80 points.

How did they do it? It's a combination of things, of course. If I look back a week to my list of "things to watch," relays were ranked first. And so it proved. Rosary won all 3 relays - and garnered 96 points. New Trier and Hinsdale Central scored 101 points apiece. So you can make a very strong argument that the Beads nearly won the meet on the basis of their relays alone.

There were other factors of course. Scott's DQ was only marginally her fault. Despite all the urgings to be "quiet for the start," two swimmers high-fived in the swim-down pool behind the starting blocks. Scott heard the noise and leaned forward. It shouldn't have happened and had the race official heard the sound, he could have asked the swimmers to step down and then back up again to start the race. But once the race started, it was an official race.

This brings into question, once again, the annual question as to the viability of the sites which host the swim meets. I spoke with one area coach, who said that while the sites were once good, the state had "outgrown" them. The swim-down area should not be immediately behind the blocks. Any athlete showing even the slightest amount of emotion following her race risks disrupting the next race.

And at least Evanston has a swim-down pool. New Trier has no such facility.

Mary Dauw, assistant coach at St. Charles East, said she remembered when she swam at those pools more than 30 years ago when she was a star swimmer at Wheaton North. There were problems with a touch-pad, which resulted in some of the cords attached to those pads being changed during finals.

The opening third of the meet had absolutely no rhythm, and swimmers had to put up with endless delays. The worse of these disrupted the 50 freestyle almost beyond repair.

The meet had already seen its share of weird incidents. These included a set of lane-marking flags whose cord broke under pressure of pushing fans on Friday night and came cascading down on top of swimmers racing toward conclusion of the 400 freestyle relay.

There will be those who will again point to the historic nature of Evanston and New Trier, and both schools have done well to put on the meets for decades. And this is no disrespect to the dozens of volunteers who help the meet go off with as few hitches as it does.

But some day, there will be a site which will host the meet and do an adequate job, where there is a true swim-down pool, where locker rooms and rubdown areas aren't a long walk from the pool deck and where any fan in the state who wants to watch the meet can do so.

Whether that is at Illinois-Chicago, which I have said is the most viable pool in the state at the moment, or at some to-be-build site, I do not know. But it will happen someday.

Evanston had a photo in their gym foyer that ran in Sports Illustrated, of the scene as girls swimmers left the blocks for a race. It is, to be sure, an impressive sight, with fans packed onto the bleachers and swimmers filling the deck.

But there remain drawbacks. And when that new site is realized, I have a feeling swimmers and their coaches and fans will feel the same as soccer folk did when North Central College took over the hosting of the state meets.

There are still drawbacks at Benedetti-Wehrli Stadium, but there is plenty of seating, there is an artificial surface that ensures a decent surface on which to play and there is room in the press box for all those who need to be there. None of those situations existed in the previous setup, where a series of high schools hosted the finals.

And there are great fans in swimming. As Adrienne Bicek hit the wall with 50 yards left in her 500 freestyle prelim race, the entire seating gallery rose to cheer the Downers Grove North swimmer to the finish. Bicek was on state record pace and the cheer grew louder as Bicek proceeded to erase the oldest record on the books - held by Glenbard West's Bridgett Bowman since 1986.

This is one of the things that makes the state swim meet special. When Mary Descenza took aim at the national record, that noise was constant from the moment the Rosary senior hit the water, and didn't end until she just missed 100 yards later.

Rosary went record-hunting itself last weekend. Its teams set records in the 200 medley relay and the 200 freestyle relay in prelims, then came back and nudged the 200 freestyle relay .01 lower on Saturday. Every Beads swimmer in the meet wore a Speedo LZR suit - commonly called the Laser - the female version of the suit worn by Michael Phelps in the Olympics.

The skin is co-designed by NASA, made of high-tech material and very tight.

"I put it on last week in practice," Rosary's Kara Savegnago said. "I could not break an 11 all week in a 25 (yard sprint.) I put it on and went a 10 without even warming up. So yeah, I think it's fast."

I caught up with Brad Waller, a Northern Illinois basketball star in the mid-80s and now the father of two state qualifying DeKalb swimmers. He was carrying one of his daughter's suits in its fancy carrying case and let me get a feel for the fabric - which is rubbery. Waller said it took his daughters 20 minutes to get into the suits the first time they tried them on. But the suits do have an impact.

"They do help," Savegnago said. "You still have to do the other stuff, but the suits do help."

With three straight titles, Rosary is on the longest state title streak since St. Charles won six in a row in the 1990s. Can the Beads win again next year? Some incredible swimmers, including Savegnago, Kally Fayhee and Elisabeth Tavierne graduate. But the Beads had a superb freshman class, and Katherine Hare and Rachel Burke have experience swimming on record-setting relays already. And Scott will be a senior next year.

At St. Charles North, Angie Chokran finished second in the 100 breaststroke and keeps getting better. The North Stars have all four members of their seventh-place finishing 200 medley relay back.

And St. Charles East has a foundation of state finalists back in Emma Smith and Kayla Scott. No matter who lifts the trophy next year, this area will be the focal point for some pretty high-caliber swimming.