Butterfly becomes favorite for St. Charles East's Kreczowski

She's been swimming literally for her entire life, but Hayley Krzeczowski found a new way to get faster in the water in the past year.

The key for the St. Charles East senior involved a shift in concentration from freestyle, where she had always had decent success, to butterfly, where she had never quite gotten the stroke perfected.

The results have been nothing short of stunning. Krzeczowski surpassed the state meet qualifying standard in her first meet of the season and she will not be hoping to qualify for an individual event for the first time in her career.

"The last three years, I focused on the 50 and 100 freestyle," Krzeczowski said. "(St. Charles East coach Joe) Cabel thought this would be a good event for me this season."

So what made the difference?

"It's the kicking," Krzeczowski said. "I could never figure out how to kick in the stroke. I finally figured out how to do that properly. It only took a practice, actually. Something clicked and I was like 'this is how to do it.' And then I practiced it and kept working hard with it."

Krzeczowski and her teammates compete on Saturday at the Upstate Eight Conference meet at Neuqua Valley. The conference meet starts "Championship Season," which continues in two weeks at the sectional and concludes Nov. 20-21 at the state meet at New Trier.

"I remember sitting behind the blocks with Kayla Scott after our final dual meet of the season saying 'this is our last dual meet and it seems like it just started,'" Krzeczowski said. "It's kind of bittersweet. But we're excited for this next month and for the next four years."

Krzeczowski's success this year can be put down to her success in mastering that butterfly kick. Butterfly kicking is called a "dolphin kick" watched from underwater, swimmers work their hips in the same way a dolphin works its tail.

"The freestyle kick is how a human walks and the dolphin kick is the way a dolphin 'walks,'" Cabel said. "You can dolphin kick underwater faster than you can swim. If you can do the dolphin kick, you are faster in all your strokes because you can go 15 meters underwater in a dolphin kick and then come to the surface."

Cabel said Krzeczowski's ability to master the dolphin kick has been a source to her increased speed.

"Maybe it's because she's been concentrated on the freestyle that she couldn't dolphin kick," Cabel said. "It's given her a new weapon this year."

Swim history buffs will remember that the dolphin kick is an innovation in the butterfly stroke, and the reason is the history of the stroke. Originally seen as a different way to swim the breaststroke, the butterfly stroke is the youngest of the four swimming strokes. It has only been an Olympic event since 1956. Since its origins in the late 1930s, swimmers used a breaststroke kick with butterfly until 2001, when the dolphin kick was allowed.

"The fly kick is a lot more of a powerful kick," Krzeczowski said. "A lot of the momentum in the butterfly is from your kick."

Similar to the breaststroke, the best butterfly swimmers have a rhythm to their strokes based on a strong arm swing and then the dolphin kick. As the stroke has developed, there have been different ways in which swimmers have propelled themselves using the stroke. One of the latest is a "flat" technique, in which the goal is to keep the chest out of the water as much as possible - as the friction between body and water is the "drag" that slows down an athlete. Leading practitioners of a flat butterfly include Australian Jessicah Schipper, the current Olympic gold medalist in the 200-meter butterfly.

"It's a new kind of stroke in the fly," Cabel said. "It works really well for (Krzeczowski.) It keeps her flatter in the water. It really did just kick in for her. It was the right time and the right place for her."

Krzeczowski has been swimming since she was 5 years old when she joined the park district team in Bartlett. She has been swimming for St. Charles' swim teams for 10 years. And the coach she tried out for at that time? Joe Cabel.

As she heads toward the end of her high school career, Krzeczowski is not alone. There are four seniors on the Saints team which will compete in the sectional with hopes of securing qualifications for the state meet. The other three are Colleen Kanies, Juliet Suess and Kayla Scott.

"We've all been on the sectional team since we were freshmen," Krzeczowski said. "We also have some freshmen who are going to be in their first year trying to get to state. We can prepare them. We know how scared you can be in your first sectional meet."

Those four seniors are also captains for the Saints, and each of them fills a different portion of a captain's responsibilities, Krzeczowski said.

"Some of us have a voice that we need to use and some of us will get girls moving in practice or talk to someone if they're not working hard enough in practice," she said. "We're there if someone needs to have an arm put around them if they're having a hard day. And there are others of us who will work to get the girls together on the weekend and handle the social side of the team."

There is a serious side to this too, and that is the need to qualify for the state meet. In addition to the 100-yard butterfly, Krzeczowski will swim in all there relays for the Saints, meaning she will be reverting to her freestyle roots.

"She's an excellent butterfly swimmer but she's also a big-time speed person," Cabel said. "It takes three relays to win the state meet and we need to get back to that formula. We'd like to score all three relays at state and maybe that's the first step toward us getting back to being in the top five at state."

Krzeczowski is in her final month as a high school swimmer, and one of the positive developments is that she will continue her career in college. She has visited both Iowa and Iowa State and chose Iowa State Wednesday night.

"My freshman year, I didn't think I was going to make it through high school swimming - I didn't think I would make it through four years let alone eight," Krzeczowski said. "After my high school season, when I was sick with mono and never really recovered, I was pretty bummed. I tried to work hard in my club season and I think that off-season really helped me. I loved Iowa and I loved Iowa State. They're both really great schools."

Krzeczowski still has three competitive meets left in high school, starting with the Upstate Eight Conference meet, which takes place on Saturday at Neuqua Valley. Then comes the state sectional and finally the state meet.

"All I need her to be is Hayley," Cabel said. "She's kind of unflappable. She has a strong character. As much as I want her to final at state, I want her to be Hayley for people to be around and to be relaxed and to get around. People perform better when they're smiling and not frowning and Hayley will help them with that."