Scouting Lake County boys swimming
Top returning teams: Stevenson, Mundelein, Libertyville, Warren, Vernon Hills.
Top swimmers: Libertyville - Lawrence Wang (Sr., fly state qualifier, IM), Mitchell Madland (Sr., breaststroke, dist. freestyle); Eric Sparks (So., fly, dist. Freestyle); Edward Steward (Fr., sprint freestyle); Mundelein - Jack Long (Sr., state qualifier back, free sprint), Cale Sethna (Sr., state qualifier breast, free sprint), Danny Oleinik (Sr., state qualifier IM, fly), Timmy McInerney (Sr., fly), Ethan Casler (Sr., fly), Andrew Hall (Sr., freestyler); Michael Romero (Jr., state qualifier all around, breast, fly), Omar Fathallah (Jr., state qualifier, finalist free sprints), Aaron Anastos (Jr., state qualifier distance free), Cameron Gilbert (Jr., IM, backstroke), Dominic Fidanze (Jr., breast, IM); Matt Willis (So., IM, backstroke), Eddie Serrano (So., distance free), David Tatevosian (So., IM, fly); Alec Sethna (Fr., distance free), Zach Gonzalez (Fr., sprint free); Stevenson - Dima Kobets (Sr.), Andrew Thalos (Sr.), Gordon Xu (Sr.); Brian Povilus (Jr.), Josh Song (Jr., state medalist, 100 fly), Brandon Xiong (Jr., state qualifier, 50 free), Jack White (Jr., sixth place diving state medalist); Lance Bi (So.), Jack Curtin (So.), Jonny Farber (So., 100 backstroke state qualifier), David Kohan (So.), Kunal Rajadhyax (So.), Brian Shen (So.), Danny Silverstein (So.), Michael Wywrocki (So.); Colin Zhang (Fr.), Diego Rosario-Freytes (Fr.), Tim Yu (Fr.), Olin Kusevskis (Fr.), Liam Plautz (Fr.); Vernon Hills - Tyler Schuldt (Sr., 200/500 free), Alex Utsis (Sr., 50/100 free) David Utsis (Sr., 100 Back, Jaejin Lee (Sr., 50/100 free), Ryan Kim (Sr., 100 fly), David Jun (Sr.) 100 free, Elik Gurovich (Sr., 200/500 free); Kevin Schumacher (Jr., diving), Devin Mulcrone (Jr, 100 fly), Jonathan Ramirez (Jr, 50/100 free), Andrew Tikhonov (Jr, 200/500 free), Arjuna Vimalarajah (Jr, 100 fly), Evan Zurow (Jr., 50/100 free), Ethan Phua (Jr., IM/100 breaststroke); Ryan Lee (So., 50/100 free), Jacob Schifrin (So., 100 breaststroke); Aidan Kamai (Fr., IM/100 fly), Andrew Laborevitch (Fr, 100 breaststroke/IM), Eli Spivak (Fr, 50/100 freestyle), Edward Zhao (Fr., 50/100 free); Warren - Alex Carruthers (Sr., breaststroke), Dante Rinaldi (Sr., backstroke, IM, sprint free); Evan Berndt (Jr., IM, breaststroke, sprint free), Ryan Sundberg (Jr., distance free), Blake Vander-Jeugdt (Jr., diving).
Season outlook: It's a Catch-22.
Happy to have the season resume but no state tournament to shoot for. Instead, conference will be the focus with everyone chasing Stevenson in the North Suburban. The Patriots are the reigning conference, county, and sectional champs. They also finished 11th at the state meet last February.
But Mundelein will be right on the Patriots' heels. Last winter, the Mustangs finished second to Stevenson in the NSC before winning its first sectional.
State qualifier Lawrence Wang leads Libertyville in the sprints. The Wildcats were fourth in the NSC last year and seventh in county. The Utsis brothers - seniors David and Alex - lead the way for Vernon Hills in the Central Suburban North, while Warren looks to improve on its fifth-place finishes at both conference and county last season.
"Our goal for the season is to work as hard as possible and have a lot of fun to see what we can do in seven weeks," said Blue Devils coach Chris Bertana. "The boys really get it and are pumped to just be back in the pool and getting to compete."
And with no sectionals or state meet, events of note include the Lake County Invite at Stevenson March 6, while the season culminates March 13 when Stevenson hosts the North Suburban Conference championship.