St. Charles East finally catches St. Charles North
It's been awhile since St. Charles East beat St. Charles North in a boys swim meet, though the Saints nearly achieved the feat last year when the crosstown rivals tied. Thursday, the visitors won 121-65 at North's pool, ending a long drought.
"It's more than just our seniors," St. Charles East senior John Tarpey said. "The seniors I had as a freshman said the seniors they had as a freshman had never heard of anyone beating North. This is huge for us and we've been working a long time for it."
The victory was seldom in doubt in a meet between a pair of the area's stronger teams. Moving from their strong holiday vacation training, the Saints opened with a win in the 200-yard medley relay and continued that momentum throughout the meet.
"We didn't focus on this meet," Tarpey said. "We've been pushing our practices. The feeling on the team is through the roof. Everybody is so excited and this is something everybody has been working toward for a long time."
Like all teams, the two-week break at the end of the year is met with intense training. Saints swimmers dye their hair blonde coming out of that sequence, a hair color they will keep until they shave it off for the postseason taper meets.
"It's our first meet in a long time," St. Charles East coach Joe Cabel said. "We haven't swam for a couple of weeks, and I was standing on the deck thinking 'man, this is different.' We just swam full-time over Christmas break."
Cabel said his team looks prepared for a tough January sequence of meets, which includes the school's annual College Events meet.
"The kids are a little tired but they're finally in shape," Cabel said. "We just didn't look good in the first half of the season."
The Saints hit a groove midway through the meet, starting with diver Andrew Lewarchick's pool-record performance in the diving competition. Mitch Milosch won the 100 butterfly, Nick Boryk won the 500 freestyle and the Saints won the 200 freestyle relay before Milosch won the 100 backstroke. Nick Milosch won the 100 breaststroke
St. Charles North coach Rob Rooney's team exited its two-week heavy training period in a similar physical state to St. Charles East.
"We're in the 'grind mode,' " Rooney said. "We're really in the grind mode in the weight room. That is something we have been extremely diligent at, and we were in no way ready to get geezed up for this meet today."
The North Stars had a two-event winner in senior Stephen Hutchinson, who won the 50 freestyle and the 100 freestyle.
"It stinks that it's our senior year," Hutchinson said. "It's not the end of the season, and we're looking at conference and state, to see where we are at the end of the season. (Rooney) was making sure we didn't overvalue this meet."
Still, St. Charles North's swimmers are competitors, and victory would have sat very well with them.
"It's fun to win against your crosstown rivals, but it's not the end of the world," Hutchinson said. "My freshman year, we won nearly every single race. My sophomore year, it was closer, but it was an intense meet, and last year we tied. So we saw them coming."
Senior Joe Myhre won the 200 freestyle for the North Stars while his freshman brother William Myhre won the 200 IM. The Myhre brothers, Hutchinson and Jack Williams combined to cap the meet with victory in the 400 freestyle relay.