St. Charles North wins own invite
In the boys swimming and diving calendar, February is always the month when the key season-ending meets take place in a sequence known as “Championship Season.”
But January is when teams present themselves to coaches like a massive multiple choice series of questions through a time that could be called “Invitational Season.” In addition to the midweek dual meets, teams gather at various schools on Saturdays and compete in large-scale invitationals.
St. Charles North hosted its 10th annual boys invitational on Saturday and won the six-team meet 364-353 over second-placed Barrington.
But just as important as the racing was the series of answers to questions that the North Stars gave to coach Rob Rooney. In other cases, performances complicated matters by creating more questions. Rooney — and most coaches in the state — have two weeks to find some answers before the Feb. 4 conference meet. Feb. 18 is the date of all IHSA sectional meets and championship season concludes Feb. 25-26 in Evanston at the IHSA state meet.
“We’ve got to make some pretty big decisions with some kids,” Rooney said. “We have to decide whether some kids will swim three relays and one individual event or two and two.”
Swimmers are allowed to swim a maximum of four events in the sectional or state meet, and can swim in no more than two individual events. Just where to slot swimmers in postseason lineups is a constant discussion point.
That process carries a high level of importance at St. Charles North because the North Stars are having a superb season and will be one of the teams vying for a trophy in Evanston.
There’s some really good teams in the state this year, especially when you take New Trier out of the equation, because they’re a little different,” Rooney said. “Naperville Central is a sleeper. Sandburg is going to have some really fast relays. Us, Loyola, Stevenson — Champaign Central looked good here today. It’s going to be an interesting meet.”
That doesn’t mean Saturday’s invitational was necessarily a trial for the North Stars, who have a dual meet with Metea Valley on Thursday before the Feb. 4 Upstate Eight Conference meet.
“We’re doing well,” Rooney said. “We’ve just got to put together the best lineup for the dynamic of this group.”
One area where the North Stars haven’t had many questions this year is the 400-yard freestyle relay, and that quartet raced to victory in meet record 3:16.83 to finally secure a meet title that Barrington had kept open for discussion since the early stages of the meet. Nick Kowaleski, Kyle Gannon, Joey Chokran and Chris Dieter swam that relay, with Kowaleski establishing the North Stars well, Gannon surging to the lead and Chokran giving Dieter a commanding edge for a six-second victory over Barrington.
“We were going for the record,” Chokran said. “We were talking about it all meet. We wanted it. I knew we were capable of it and we all knew we could do it.”
“The 400 free relay has been good all year,” Rooney said. “We’ll have to see what our combination is. We ran a little different order today. It looks strong. All these boys have got it going on pretty well. They have a good idea what they want to do.”
As strong as the North Stars 400 freestyle relay performed, the team’s 200 freestyle relay faded to a fourth-place finish on Saturday.
“The sprint relay can be a lot better,” Rooney said. “They’re confident with the 400 free relay and they should be confident with the 200 free relay.
The North Stars won three individual races. Dieter won the 200 freestyle ahead of teammate Gannon, Gannon won the 500 freestyle with teammate Spencer Gray second while Chokran won the 100 breaststroke. Chokran swam back-to-back in the breaststroke and the 400 freestyle relay.
“It was a little tough for me coming out of the breaststroke,” Chokran said. “But we were all right there and we all knew we could do it. It was just a matter of believing in each other in that relay.”
Chokran’s breaststroke swim needed to be strong because Barrington’s Connor Kobida stayed competitive throughout the race.
“Today was good,” Chokran said. “Today was my best time ever in a drag suit. I was really happy with it. It was a good swim for me.”
The North Stars did not practice on Friday afternoon due to the day’s snowfall and subsequent early dismissal. The team did lift weights on Friday morning and arrived at 6 a.m. for early practice on Saturday prior to the invitational.
“Not touching the water is weird on a weekday,” Chokran said. “We came in early this morning and got a lot of yards in. We felt smooth and got loose. I don’t think (Friday) affected us too much.
Rooney said he hoped his swimmers were tired following Saturday’s meet, which concluded with the usual extended series of cool-down swims.
“I know they’re not fresh,” Rooney said. “We made it up this morning so they didn’t miss a thing. You want to swim out a little bit after a weight practice and we didn’t have an opportunity to do that until today.”
Rooney said a week ago Gray began to surge within the varsity group. Saturday, he said Joey Quan swam well, finishing ninth in the 200 freestyle and sixth in the 500 freestyle.
“(Quan) is one of those guys who, in the next few years, is going to be a huge contributor for us,” Rooney said. “We’ve got a good group of juniors and a very raw group of freshmen. We’ve got a lot of work to do in the next few years.”
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 record 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 is the Feb. 10 Mid-Suburban Conference 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.”