Fremd makes steady progress

Last year the Fremd boys swimming team registered 1 point in the state swim meet. This year the Vikings are guaranteed to top that total.

After advancing its entire team from the Barrington sectional, Fremd used the state preliminaries to show just how much it has improved. The Vikings qualified swimmers into three consolation final events to be held today at Evanston high school.

Junior Sam Childs earned ninth place in the 100 free and took 12th in the 200 free to earn spots in both consolation finals. Junior teammate Varun Shivakumar will join Childs after finishing ninth in the 100 back.

"From last year scoring only one point at state, now we have three finalists," said Shivakumar, who took 12th in the 100 back last year. "So we're happy. It's a big improvement. Next year is going to be even better."

Childs, who only started swimming the 200 at the conference meet, said he was surprised to qualify in the event. He credited his teammates for pushing him to go faster.

"I had a lot of team support," he said. "With everyone counting on you, (I felt an obligation to swim faster). We have a pretty strong team that's holding together pretty well."

Second-year Fremd coach Nicole LaBeau was very pleased with the way her team performed and said she sees it as another step toward their eventual goal of becoming an annual state contender.

"I think it's the second step but I think it's the first visible step," she said. "Last year we had a lot of building, a lot of coming together. This year we still did a lot of that as we continue building up the ranks, not just the numbers but the dreams of getting people to realize that you can do this no matter what you come in starting as."

She cited senior Mike Moravek, who learned to swim as a freshman and finished 37th in the 100 breaststroke, as an example of the transformation that has occurred in the Vikings' program.

However, don't be fooled into thinking that Fremd's work is done.

"We want to show that we're not just another team," Shivakumar said. "We can compete at state. We'll see if we can win our consol heats. So we do have something to prove."

Barrington advanced its 200 medley relay team of Brian Marko, Justin Yu, Ben Redpath and Nick Santoro, but fell just short in several other races.

"We swam fast but we just didn't swim fast enough," Broncos coach Jim Bart said. "We were 13th there, or 16th or 18th. I'm not disappointed because the kids swam faster, even if we came up a little short of placing in the top 12."

Redpath, who finished 16th in the 200 individual medley, was happy with the relay team's performance and said he hoped for a first-place finish in today's consolation race.

"I'm looking forward to the relay," he said. "We're 10th going into tomorrow but we'll see how we do. We should improve."

Yu took 18th in the 100 breaststroke and Barrington finished 13th in the 400 free relay.

Wheeling senior Eric Maczko wanted to crack the top 12 in his final season and chose the 100 fly as a vehicle to get him there. He was very happy with his decision after finishing 12th in that event and tied for 13th in the 100 back while setting personal-bests.

"I'm happy, that's good enough," Maczko said. "Top 12 in the fly and I beat both of my times. I'm pretty excited to come back tomorrow and see how I do."

Cary-Grove junior Brent Curtis was sure he had missed the qualifying cut after finishing the 100 free in 47.77 seconds and immediately tried to focus on his three remaining races. Minutes later, he found out he had finished 12th to qualify for the first time in his career.

"Once I finished swimming my race, I looked up at the scoreboard and I thought that (my time) wasn't going to be fast enough to score," Curtis said. "So at first I was disappointed, so I went straight to the warm-down pool.

"I was getting mentally prepared for my next race and I was in the middle of my warm-down when my friend came over and told me that I made it. I was in disbelief. It was a very pleasant surprise."

Curtis also finished 15th in the 100 breaststroke.

Neuqua Valley senior Brian Alden had two of the day's best swims. He's the top qualifier in the 50 free (20.16) and the 100 free (44.65).