St. Charles North swims past St. Charles East

St. Charles North and St. Charles East might have returned to the competitive swimming waters on Tuesday, but really they've never been far from the pool these last two weeks.

In fact, with schools on winter break, the number of hours spent wearing goggles increased, and it showed on Tuesday when St. Charles' two high schools engaged in their annual boys swimming dual meet.

The host North Stars won the meet 105-81 in a meet where both teams had to prove they could make the transition from athletes who have been training like maniacs to competitive swimmers.

“It's an exciting time,” St. Charles North coach Rob Rooney said. “You come out of Christmas break and the big thing is keeping them mentally stable. Physically they're not stable. I've been talking about this to them the last couple of days. You can be physically tired, but mentally, you've got to keep yourself moving forward toward goals.”

Rooney said experience plays a factor in handling such situations.

“We have experienced swimmers and but we also don't have experience,” Rooney said. “The seniors that we have were freshmen the last time that we had a real winning team. They were the last ones involved in seeing a group of mentally tough kids.”

While those seniors didn't participate on that varsity team, Rooney said just being on the squad helps.

“They have things they can fall back on,” Rooney said.

And one of those things was the way those North Stars teams trained.

“They have done a phenomenal job over break,” Rooney said. “(Tuesday) was the first time we've raced in close to three weeks. But we've got things we want to accomplish down the road that we're trying to focus on. It was a good win for us.”

The meet hung in the balance until the 100-yard freestyle, in which the North Stars took the top three places, led by race winner Andrew Preusse.

“Our strength has been the sprint freestyles,” Rooney said. “We didn't put them all in the 50 today. I moved them into the 100 today to mix some things up.”

Of the North Stars who Rooney said excelled – despite not winning any races – was sophomore Spencer Gray.

“I was pretty happy with my swims today,” Gray said. “I went 58 in the fly today, which is what I went when tapered a year ago.”

Gray said the mental lift in swimming well in a meet like Tuesday's will carry over into other upcoming meets.

“This is for confidence,” he said. “During a race, you have to mentally push yourself to finish it.”

St. Charles East trained every bit as hard as St. Charles North during the recent break.

“I think it was psychological,” St. Charles East coach Joe Cabel said. “They seemed a little nervous before the meet. And they got it going in the right direction, so it worked out well.”

Cabel said he wanted his swimmers to “be brave” when they got up to race in Tuesday's meet.

“After a lot of training, it's easy to blame your performance on being tired. It's not that you fear anybody or anything. It's that you fear the fact that you might be a little tired. I think they used that to their advantage.”

Of the athletes who faced challenges was freshman Will Shanel, who won the 500 freestyle, came immediately back and swam in the 200 freestyle relay and then swam three events later in the meet-ending 400 freestyle relay.

“I challenged him in more ways than that,” Cabel said. “He swam out of his grade level today and that was good to see.”

Of the victors in the water for the Saints was senior Corey Mondal, who won the 100 breaststroke.

“This is a good reflection point for us, to see where we are after the hardest workouts of the season,” Mondul said. “I think everybody's a little tired right now.”

Time moves quickly in the boys swimming season. The state meet is Feb. 25-26 at New Trier. But that leaves just over one month until conference meets begin the postseason sequence.