Records fall at DuPage Valley Conference meet
Nobody was wearing synthetic swimsuits, none of the top swimmers were tapered and everyone was dead tired from a season of grueling training and competition.
And yet records were shattered in many races at the DuPage Valley Conference swimming meet at West Chicago on Saturday.
That can only mean that, as a great showman once said, you probably "ain't seen nothin' yet" from the best the DVC.
Naperville North snatched the conference title from its rivals Naperville Central for the first time in three years by a score of 269-247, winning both free relays and four individual events.
In the 400 freestyle relay the two teams were neck-and-neck through all four legs and Huskies anchorman Will Heidler beat out his Redhawks counterpart Danny Tucker 3:11.06-3:11.20 as both teams broke both the pool and the meet records.
"It's always exciting to be in the water against those guys," Heidler said. "They were right there with us. Danny was coming on really strong at the end. He had a great race. All of our guys put it together in that race."
The winning Huskies team in the 400 relay was Joel Demuth, Nick Bessler, Andrew Eiken and Heidler.
"We came in with a goal of winning the conference championship," Heidler said. "We knew what we wanted to do."
Heidler also set a meet record by winning the 200 IM in 1:54.82 and a pool record when he won the 100 backstroke in 53.24.
Also having an outstanding day was Eiken, who swam the third leg of the 200 freestyle relay on a team that also included Demuth, Connor Hubbard and Kevin Butz in a pool-record time of 1:28.43.
Eiken also won the 200 freestyle in a meet-record 1:43.49 and the 100 freestyle in 47.92, not a record.
"I'm happy," Eiken said. "I dropped time off my 200 and I was only a couple of tenths away from my personal best in the 100. This was an important meet for us because everyone was a little down on themselves last week. We had a couple of team meetings and decided to not treat this just like another meet. We had to make it important."
Naperville Central's victories were delivered by Tucker, a meet-record 21.65 in the 50 freestyle Matt O'Brien, a 53.86 in the 100 butterfly and the medley relay team of Jeff Depew, Mark Menis, Nate Weeks and Tucker, who swam a 1:37.41 breaking both the meet and the pool record in the 200 medley relay.
Wheaton co-op, which finished third with 194 points, also came through with some big victories.
Collin Hogan went out into the lead in the 500 and held it all they way to finish with a meet-record 4:43.40.
"Overall it was a pretty good swim, but there are some things I can tweak," Hogan said.
Ryan Frederickson won the 100 breaststroke in 1:02.28 and George Doran won the diving competition with 381 points.
"Our guys did a great job on all levels," said Wheaton substitute coach Jason Maddux. "We had a lot of time drops and we expect big things from Collin, Ryan, George and some others at sectional and state."
Chris Hickernell of West Aurora continued to stay on pace to qualify for state by finishing third in the diving with 366.30 points behind Doran and Josh Gitzlaff of Naperville North, who earned 376.70.
"Chris really had a strong 11-dive program today," said Joe Neukirch, the swimming coach of West Aurora, which finished fifth with 101 points, behind the host Wildcats, who scored 107. "He will really benefit from the strong competition he faced at this meet. We expect him to be in the thick of things at sectionals in two weeks."