Marmion triumphs at own invite for 5th straight year

For sustained applause, it was hard to top the cheer raised following the one-minute relay at Marmion's Block Relays on Saturday.

The goal of the race is for four swimmers to each swim 25 yards with the anchor racer touching as close to 1:00 as possible. The record heading into Saturday's renewal of this annual relay was the 39th edition and the record in the event stood at a nearly impossible to beat 59.98.

That mark fell when Boylan's quartet touched in exactly 1:00. It's not an event that gets swum which may be why it is enjoyed so much.

"The funny thing about this meet is the one-minute relay," Marmion coach Bill Schalz said. "There's no points scored. But it's such a novelty that it's the one that brings the most excitement to the meet."

Marmion certainly enjoyed its two hours in competition. The Cadets finished 130-96 ahead of second-placed Lyons Township and claimed their fifth straight Block Relays title.

"When you get guys in relay situation, this is where you get the team aspect of swimming," Schalz said. "We always see a lot of great swims from kids here. We see kids really getting up and being spirited. That's what we really look for."

Marmion junior Eric Marinello swam on three of the Cadets relays and helped the 400 medley relay, in which each swimmer swims 25 yards in each stroke before handing off to the next swimmer, glide to victory.

"This is one of the most fun meets of the year," Marinello said. "It's really fun for the team. We swam a lot better than we did in our first meet."

The Block Relays are set both a competition that comes just after finals end and just before Christmas training begins. While the Cadets do swim in the Naperville North College Events Meet on Tuesday, the next big meet comes Jan. 9 when they return from their hard training to compete in the Evanston Invitational.

"We've got Evanston and Sandburg coming right out of the break and those are both really big meets," Schalz said. "We really need to get better right now. We're a better team than we were against Fenwick at the beginning of the season. But we have a long way to go to achieve the things that we want to achieve."

Benet's swim team doesn't see a lot of each other during the week, so meets like the Block Relays are good for team unity as well as team performance. The Redwings swam well, finishing third in the six-team meet. Benet won the first and last events of the meet - the 200 medley relay and the 400 freestyle relay.

"At a meet like this, we're a little bit challenged because our depth is a little bit limited," Benet coach Mike Rigali said.

That depth was further stretched because Rigali had a few sick swimmers who could not compete and few others who were out of town.

"We had some younger swimmers step up," Rigali said. "I thought we did pretty well overall. Some of these kids only get to see each other in practice once a week. We're doing a split squad. We practice twice as a team on Monday, and then again on Saturday morning. Otherwise, the varsity trains in Oak Brook and the JV is at the Y in downtown Naperville. It is good getting everyone together for a meet like this."