Buffalo Grove delivers strong invitational effort
Putting the finishing touches a fine weekend, Buffalo Grove took third place in the Fred Palffy Invitational it hosted on Saturday.
That meant a trophy finish for the Bison — the first in seven years at this meet — but coach Jamie Klotz was even more pleased about the quality of the performances against excellent competition following a tough dual the previous night against Prospect.
“We talk about what it takes to really be a championship meet swimmer, and that’s being able to swim well two days in a row,” he said. “We really did that collectively this weekend. I’m unbelievably excited about how things went for us.”
Cary-Grove’s depth paid off as the Trojans claimed the championship in an 11-team field with 239 points.
In the final race of the meet, the 400-yard free relay, the Trojans tied for first place with Buffalo Grove at 3:23.04. That left the Bison 1 point behind Lake Park in the team standings for second place, with the Lancers at 200 and BG at 199.
Bison senior Ian Rodriguez continued to rewrite the pool and team record book, getting the better of Cary-Grove senior and state meet veteran Michael Hamann in both the 200 IM and 100 backstroke.
Rodriguez lopped more than a second of his previous best in the IM, finishing in 1:57.32 to break his own team and pool records and almost four seconds ahead of Hamann. In the backstroke, Rodriguez finished in 52.60, 2½ seconds in front.
Julian Vasquez gave the Bison a lift by delivering a strong final dive to win with 316.45; teammate Andrew Cabalfin was fifth (292.75).
The Bison won the medley relay with Rodriguez, Matt Schulstad, Jon Mass and Nick Poirer finishing in 1:42.30. Schulstad also provided points in the 100 fly, where he was third in 56.37.
Cary-Grove didn’t win a race but scored consistently in the top six with multiple competitors — a 4-5 finish from Nick Dudek and Max Hopkins in the 500 free; a 5-6 finish from Tyler King and Joe Weber in the 50 free; fourth from Adam Gaynor in the 200 free and relays that all finished in the top six.
Lake Park’s Sean Gregor won the 100 free in 49.33, just ahead of Hoffman Estates’ Nick Jessee (49.58), Mass (50.61) and Cary-Grove’s Jon Curtis (51.14).
Jessee and Sang W. Han continued to deliver impressive results. Jessee won the the 200 comfortably in 1:48.37; Han won the 100 breaststroke in 1:02.03 and placed second in the 50 free (22.95). The Hawks also got a 2-3 effort in diving from Demetrio Kazakos and Nick Cannella.
at Hersey: Conant added to its impressive season with a decisive victory at Olympic Pool in Arlington Heights, topping runner-up Jacobs by nearly 100 points and finishing at 313 points.
Jonathan Burke was in command while winning the 200-yard freestyle (1:45.87) and the 500 (4:42.82); Alex Shozda won the 50 and 100 freestyles and the Cougars won the 200 medley and 400 freestyle relays.
Jacobs got wins from Alex Elston in the 100 fly, Jacob DeDina in the 100 breast and in 200 free relay to finish at 228 points to edge Deerfield (227) for second place.
Wheeling (164.5) edged Hersey (156) and St. Viator (146) for fourth place.
at St. Charles North: From the very start of Saturday’s St. Charles North Invitational, Barrington was competitive with the host North Stars. That tight competitive situation continued through the end of the meet which St. Charles North won 364-353.
But heading into the final event of the meet, the 400-yard freestyle relay, the Broncos were only behind 324-319, proving they can go toe-to-toe with one of the state’s better teams and asserting their own talent in the water.
“We were in it from the start at the medley relay all the way through the 400 free relay,” Barrington coach John Valentine said. “I thought we swam really well today. Overall, our times are slightly down. But if you look at the way we set up this meet, we didn’t have our best relays because we were trying to score points not only on the relays but in the individual events as well.”
Barrington finished second in the six-team meet despite only winning the 200 freestyle relay of the 11 swimming events. Kyle Ujiye, James Rodney, Sebastian Piekarski and Jack Strauss swam that relay and finished in 1:29.94. Nolan Presmyk scored a decisive victory in diving for the Broncos other event victory.
“We had some nice 50s today,” Valentine said. “Not only in the 200 free relay, which we won, but our flat-start 50s in 50 freestyle. We did well in that too.”
A number of strong individual results helped key the Broncos to second place. Tops among those was the second-place swim by Connor Kobida in the 100 breaststroke.
“Connor Kobida dropped a second from what he’s been doing in the last couple of weeks,” Valentine said. “He’s got his timing back, which is good.”
St. Charles North is potentially one of the top teams in the state this year and Champaign Central showed its power by winning four events.
“There were some great swims in the water today that weren’t done by our team,” Valentine said. “When you come to a meet like this, I don’t think you expect records to be broken. But there were some fast swims out there today.”
Barrington concludes its regular season with a Thursday dual meet with Hoffman Estates. The team’s next competition after that is the Feb. 10 Mid-Suburban League meet.
“We were able to see today how some of the kids who are in the second or third position in the relays will be able to hold onto those positions,” Valentine said. “We’ve got some talented young kids coming up and some older kids looking over their shoulders. It was good test for us today to see what those younger kids could do.”
— Darryl Mellema