Marmion wins 4th straight Block Relays

Traditionally, Marmion's Dan Block Memorial Relays take place the day after finals conclude and mark the end to the fall semester and the start of two weeks of hard training.

The training is still about to begin, but Friday's snow led to a cancellation of school, meaning some students still have finals to take on Jan. 5.

But while the Block Relays weren't a celebration of the end of the fall term, there were plenty of happy Cadets on deck for their annual invitational meet. Marmion won the meet for the fourth straight year.

"This is the real start of the season for us," Marmion assistant coach Kyle Capen said. "It's fun. It's a relay meet. They were swimming different things to what they're going to swim against the rest of the season. And we're swimming against teams like Byron and Rockford Boylan that we don't see the rest of the season."

The Cadets powered through the meet, especially in the latter stages. Marmion won each of the 300-yard stroke relays - butterfly, backstroke and breaststroke - then finished by sweeping both levels of the 400-yard freestyle relay.

"They looked good today," Capen said. "The biggest thing was that, with the cancellation of school, we couldn't practice. It's always hard coming off of a day off of your normal schedule and your normal routine. These guys haven't been in the water for 48 hours, and it was good to see them get in the water and swim fast in those circumstances."

The setup of the meet and the youthful depth on Marmion's roster meant the Cadets had some very talented frosh-soph relays, which count in the point totals just as the varsity races. Ben Kanute, a sophomore who qualified for the state meet last year, was one of those swimmers, and he anchored the frosh-soph 400 freestyle relay to a 3:30.15 finish. The Cadets edged Lyons by .06 to win the race.

"My teammates stayed with them for most of it and I just finished it off," Kanute said. "It was cool."

While times remain relative at this early point of the season, swimmers still seek to perform as well as possible, and that means lowering times when they have a chance.

"I broke 50 (seconds) in the 100 free for the first time today," Kanute said. "I was happy with that. We had not too bad a week heading into this, so I was pretty pumped getting going today."

Benet also competed in the meet, after having a morning workout. The Redwings won the 1-minute relay, a 100-yard race where the winning quartet finishes closest to 1 minute without going over.

The Redwings also finished third in the frosh-soph 400 freestyle relay, while the varsity finished the meet with a fourth-place finish in the varsity edition of the same event.

"I was happy, especially with the last relay," Rigali said. "They were able to knock 4 seconds off their season best. We had a pretty tough workout this morning to make up for (Friday.)"

Lyons and Byron were strong finishers in the invitational, and Rigali said facing such tough competition is only good for his team.

"We stood toe-to-toe with those guys," Rigali said. "Marmion is always stacked. And our younger swimmers, especially, are starting to step up."