St. Charles North back where it belongs

Even without a trophy to show for its efforts, there’s no denying how successful St. Charles North’s boys swim program has been in recent years.

But even programs that soar out of the water like dolphins every now and again slide back beneath the waves — and that’s been the case for the North Stars the past two seasons.

But this year, even though the sequence from which state titlists and trophy-winners will be decided has yet to begin, it is not at all premature to say that Rob Rooney and his team are back among the state’s elite.

How successful have the North Stars been? They finished seventh in 2006, placed fifth in 2007 and were fourth in 2008. Then there was the drop-off, to 34th in 2009 and, in 2010, St. Charles North did not have anyone swimming on the second day of the state meet, which is the only day finals points are scored.

“We came out of last year with a very uncomfortable taste of things,” Rooney said. “The boys made a commitment in the spring to commit to the sport of swimming. A lot of them played water polo in the spring and all of them swam for club teams in the summer — many of them for the St. Charles swim team. This fall, they did a great job and we started talking about what they were capable of. They’ve really hunkered down to getting it done.”

The North Stars did have qualifiers a year ago at Evanston, and most of those athletes are back hoping to make an impact in the Feb. 25-26 state meet, which takes place at New Trier.

“We had a rough end of the season and state meet last season,” St. Charles North junior Chris Dieter said. “I believe if we want something, you can go out there to get it and put it on the line. I think we have a good shot of getting top 15 or top 10 this year. There are a lot of good teams out there.”

Every team is built differently. In St. Charles North’s case, there is no one dominant class. Andrew Preusse and Kyle Passini are seniors, Dieter and Joey Chokran are juniors while Kyle Gannon and Nick Kowaleski are sophomores — and all six swam in the state prelims a year ago either on relays or as individuals.

“There is a huge difference between last year and this year in the way we are preparing physically,” Dieter said. “And there’s also been a change in the way we are preparing mentally. Guys like (Gannon and Kowaleski) who were freshmen last year, they have become loads stronger mentally. They see that, to be part of the team, the upperclassmen need them. And they’re stepping up to the plate. Then the seniors are stepping up because everyone sees we have potential this year.”

But the North Stars enter the home stretch of the 2010-11 season with more than just “potential” fueling their aspirations. This season has been filled with a series of successes, starting with a third-place finish at the early-season Neuqua Valley Invitational.

“That was really where the boys made a statement to themselves,” Rooney said. “The boys rose to the occasion and did a fantastic job. Earlier in that meet, we went to Neuqua Valley for a dual meet, and I do not think we truly believed in ourselves. We came out of the Neuqua Valley Invite believing in ourselves.”

In January, the North Stars solidified their credentials by taking second place in the Evanston Invitational and then second in the New Trier Invitational.

“I think the Neuqua Valley Invite really woke us up,” Preusse said. “I wasn’t there. But the Evanston and the New Trier — beating Loyola twice — really helped us prove how we fit into this equation in the state. Rooney keeps hounding it into us, and I think we’re all right there with him.”

Repeated solid performances against the state’s best have any disbelieving North Stars see that they do belong in any listing of the state’s strong programs.

“You look at those teams out there and you see their guys have won state championships and so have their teams,” Dieter said. “But now we go and realize that they’re still big guys but we’re the big kids too. We’ve seen a lot of top six finishes in races with those guys.”

Then came a hiccup in the North Stars own invitational, when the hosts were second to Barrington.

“We were coming off two good meets in a row and I think ambitions are high right now,” Preusse said. “We’re just trying to fight it out all the way to state now.”

When St. Charles North hosts the Upstate Eight Conference meet on Feb. 5, they will go in with high expectations. Two weeks later, the North Stars host a sectional meet, where the top competition comes from crosstown rival St. Charles East. Then Rooney and his team head to New Trier to see how they fare in the 2011 state meet.

It’s a lot of high-caliber swimming to pack into a month, but this is always the way the swimming postseason goes and teams have been training hard through the season to get ready. Actually, that training started many months ago, which is one of the keys to the resurgent North Stars.

“Our whole team has been training extremely hard,” Gannon said. “Not just the varsity guys. The JV guys have been giving 110 percent too. It’s showing off at meets like the Neuqua Valley Invitational and the New Trier Invitational. We work hard in every practice and then we have confidence in the meets.”

So what is the potential? Rooney talks about getting back to where the team has been, which means the top 10. Swimmers with potential always have one goal, getting their hands on some form of trophy — and that’s something that’s never happened for a swim team at St. Charles North. With New Trier, Naperville Central and Neuqua Valley among the top teams in the state, such an achievement would be difficult — but unprecedented and superb achievements are what teams dream about.

“Going into the state meet, we feel we can get into the top five, maybe even to the top three,” Gannon said. “We showed in the last two invitationals, at New Trier and at Evanston, that we can be right up there with the big-name teams. We have a very good chance.”

Knowing that there might be some reward at the end of the season has an accumulating effect within a team. Swimmers feel there is potential, so they work hard. Then there is success, which fuels the desire to continue to work hard.

At this point of the campaign, every team has trained many thousand yards and endured weeks of two-a-day practices. One of the things driving St. Charles North through that ordeal is the thought of what they might be able to achieve.

“We’re pushing each other in practice a lot more than we did last year,” Dieter said. “Winter break was more than a month ago, but we’re still feeling that a bit. But just in practice, there’s a lot of interconnectivity. I’ll be swimming in lane one and Kyle Passini will be swimming in lane two. It’s not like I’m beating him a lot, but it is like ‘we’re racing’ and we’re pushing each other.”

There are many keys, but every season contains some of the same important moments as teams prepare for the final meets. All teams back off the excessive training in the final weeks and “taper” their swimmers. The rest allows muscles to recover and to realize the benefit from all the training. Then swimmers see huge time drops and go faster than at any point in the season. But leading to that meet, swimmers continue to compete in a tired state.

“We just need to get through mental toughness with a lot of our guys,” Preusse said. “Some of them are young and haven’t been up to this stage. So that’s the real thing we need the most, is mental toughness.”