State meet suits Lakes' freshman Le just fine

Lakes freshman Daniel Le doesn't even have a pool at his own high school to train at.

He even has to hope for lane time at Hastings YMCA to get in his workouts, and when other kids from more notable programs are swimming with big-name club programs, Le is swimming unattached in club swimming events.

Remarkably, none of that seems to bother the seemingly unflappable Le. So when he walked into Evanston High School for the preliminaries of the IHSA swimming and diving championships Friday afternoon, the big arena, the big programs and even the big names didn't faze Le in the slightest.

When it came time for Le to race in the 100 breaststroke, the calm demeanor that he seemingly always exhibits helped lead the Lakes Eagle to a first at the school that is just five years old.

In the seventh heat of the 100 breaststroke, Le cruised to a season-best 59.03 clocking and a second-place finish. His time was good enough for ninth place overall and a spot in Saturdays consolation finals.

"I got some good taper in this week," Le said. "I trained hard and just went out and swam my race."

Le was just one piece of a very good day in the Evanston pool for Lake County teams and qualifiers.

Mundelein had its best day at state since 1999. The Mustangs earned two individual and two relay spots in the finals - and all in record-setting fashion.

The 200 freestyle relay team of Pat Falconer, Connor Black, Bryan Wiener and Will Davidson narrowly missed the top six finals and will swim in the consolation finals after their 1:26.20 school-record effort.

The same group, minus Wiener and plus David Dickinson, broke another school record in the 400 freestyle relay and hung on for a 10th-place finish and a spot in the consolation finals.

"We wanted to medal in multiple events," said Mundelein coach Rahul Sethna. "We figured to get two relays into the consolation finals and Pat into the finals in the 200 and 500 and we got just what we had hoped for."

The Michigan State-bound Falconer will be very busy today, as he will have four more races to negotiate. In record-setting fashion, Falconer swam bests in the 200 freestyle (1:40.49) and the 500 freestyle (4:32.70) to earn finals berths.

"We figure that the 200 will be a dog fight between three or four guys while the 500 could be between him and two other guys for the state title - should be fun," Sethna said.

The "fun" part of the day was not lost on Warren sophomore Danny Conway. The way Conway figured it, if he went out and had fun in the 500 freestyle, good things would happen.

Sure enough, they did.

Conway dropped over five seconds off his seed time in the race and nearly pulled a top-six finish - but he will gladly settle for an eighth-place overall and a spot in the consolation finals in 4:39.60. Conway became just the fourth Blue Devil ever to race for a medal, and the first since Kirk Gagliardo finished eighth in the 50 freestyle in 2008.

"I just needed to go out and have some fun and enjoy racing," Conway said. "The atmosphere here is just incredible at the state meet and it's by far been my favorite meet to swim in."

The most fun portion of the day for Stevenson may have come at the very end of the day and by nearly the slimmest possible margin.

Already having qualified senior Josh Hodges in the 100 butterfly, the Patriots were looking for more in the final heat of the 400 freestyle relay. Hodges was the only senior on the team that included Adam Salzman, Langston Fitts and Ryota Kuwahara - and fittingly it was Hodges that anchored the group to a 12th-place overall finish and a spot in the consolation finals (3:12.95).

"I just knew it was all or nothing at that point," Hodges said. "I knew I had to give it everything I had to get us into the finals and I gave it all I had."

Hodges earlier added the 100 butterfly to his day with an 11th-place finish in a personal-best 51.60. Hodges moved up from being seeded 14th to a spot in the consolation finals.

Stevenson's gain at the end of the day was disdain for Libertyville. The Wildcats came back in their heat of the 400 freestyle relay from last place to win the heat in 3:12.99, then were forced to wait out the final three heats.

All the team of Ben Snader, Stevie Wimmer, Chris Marr and Daniel Guerrero could do was wait it out, and the unfortunate end meant the Wildcats missed by .04 of qualifying for the finals.

It wasn't all bad for Libertyville as the Kentucky-bound Wimmer earned spots in the finals of the 50 freestyle and 100 freestyle. Wimmer is seeded third right behind fellow North Suburban Conference rival Mitch Stoehr of Lake Forest in the 100 freestyle, and Wimmer is seeded behind close friend and Northwestern-bound rival Dominic Cubelic in the finals of the 50 freestyle.

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