Reasons there for Redhawks

At the end of the day, Naperville Central can count on Ben Reasons.

The senior returning state qualifier won the 11th event of the meet, the 100-yard breaststroke, and then came right back in the last race of the day to anchor the 400 freestyle relay team, to help the Redhawks to victory at Saturday's Trojan Invite at Downers Grove North.

"I swam the two events in a row at every meet and you get used to it after awhile," Reasons said. "When you're on the block for the relay, everything goes away. You forget that you're tired."

"Ben also swam two races in a row last year, and he's used to the pitfalls of doing that," said Naperville Central coach Mike Adams. "The thing with Ben is that he's not afraid of it. He embraces it and wants to do it. That's half the battle right there."

Reasons was joined on the winning 400 free relay team that finished in 3:18.69 by Chris Depew, Danny Tucker and Chris Canene.

At last year's state meet Reasons finished fifth in the 100 breaststroke, which he completed Saturday in 1:01.73, almost four seconds better than the runner-up.

He didn't do too badly at the beginning of the day either, as he anchored the 200 medley relay team of Jeff Depew, Joe Ciliak and Chris Depew to victory in 1:41.18.

In the middle of the day, Reasons finished second by less than a second to Lyons Twp.'s Joe Hladik in the 100 freestyle.

With many of their top racers still feeling the effects of a flu bug that hit this week and missing Matt O'Brien, a key member of two relay teams, due to illness, the Redhawks called upon their vaunted depth to pull them through Saturday's meet.

With Ryan Stanley and Canene taking O'Brien's individual events and Stanley and Tucker filling the freestyle relay slots, those final two wins gave the Redhawks a 401-354 final standings advantage over second-place Lyons Twp. Downers Grove North was tied for third with Prospect at 287, followed by Downers Grove South (262), Benet (219) and Rolling Meadows (175).

"Without Matt we had to switch some things around," said Redhawks senior Chris Depew, who won the 100 butterfly with a time of 54.40 and swam on both winning relays. "The guys who replaced him stepped up big and things went our way."

"Our team chemistry is a big thing," Reasons said. "There's a lot of friendly competition. It's good for the team when you know there are two or three guys as good as you for every race."

Mike Greco of Naperville Central won the diving competition with 360.65 points.

The Redhawks also picked up valuable points in the events they didn't win as the 200 free relay (Canene, Stanley, Mark Menis and Tucker) finished second; Jeff and Chris Depew finished second and third in the 200 IM and Jeff Depew was second in the 100 backstroke.

Tucker and Menis were second and third in the 50 freestyle, while Keith Piper was third in the 200 freestyle.

"The kids have done a great job all year," Adams said. "They're coming home well in their races, and today everyone contributed."