Bartlett's Lee, Cary-Grove's Langanis headed to state

While they swam well throughout Saturday's St. Charles East boys swimming sectional, the Bartlett-Streamwood co-op was unable to get a swimmer qualified until the final individual event.

Then senior Matt Lee swam a solid 100-yard breaststroke, finished second, beat the state qualifying time and earned his second consecutive trip to the state finals.

"Everybody who was tapered for today dropped an immense amount of time," Bartlett-Streamwood coach Jeremy Meserole said. "We swam really well. (Lee's) breaststroke, in terms of state cuts, that's what we were looking at."

Lee was a sectional champion in 2014 and finished 17th-fastest in the breaststroke at the state prelims, missing by a half-second a chance to swim in the finals.

Bartlett-Streamwood finished sixth of the 10 competing teams, and the youthful Sabrehawks accumulated a number of points throughout the meet while missing on state qualifiers.

"As a team, we swam great," Meserole said. "The boys have come a long way. This is my first year here coaching the boys, and there are new expectations. But they did well and came a long way."

With Lee's qualification, the Sabrehawks will have other swimmers on-deck and in the stands at New Trier for the finals, and that experience of the state atmosphere will be good for the program's future, Meserole said.

"They'll get a taste of it and that will give them something to reach for next year," Meserole said.

Huntley also has a state qualifier in senior Bryan Haage, who qualified in the 200 IM and the 100 freestyle. Haage was third in each of his events and was faster than the state qualifying time and earned his first trip to the state meet. His brother Matt qualified for the state meet in 2013.

"It's been a good season ever since I came aboard," Huntley coach Barry Wells said. "Bryan's a very good swimmer and we're all very proud of him. A lot of our guys had personal bests and we're all proud of them too."

Wells credited Haage's all-around ethic, beyond his swimming, as a reason the team performed as well as it has this season.

"He's not just an elite swimmer, he's a character guy," Wells said. "He makes everybody better. When somebody's slacking off, he's the first one to remind them to get going."

As a team, Huntley finished eighth, ahead of South Elgin and Elgin. South Elgin freshman diver Justin York qualified for the state finals as well.

At Barrington: Cary-Grove, coming off a conference meet win, was led by junior Cooper Langanis who qualified in two events - taking second in the 500 freestyle (4:42.33) and fourth in the 200 freestyle (1:44.47). In the former race, Langanis held the lead for most of the way before being nipped at the finish by Barrington's Mitchell Gavars.

"It's amazing - it's way better than I expected it to be," Langanis said of qualifying for the first time. "It's so relieving, after three years of hard work, it's great. The first half of (the 500 free) I felt so good. I died a bit at the end, but I'm not even mad about that."

"Cooper swam exceptionally well," Cary-Grove coach Rick Schaefer said, pleased with Langanis's efforts. "Oh my gosh, yeah, you look at last year to this year, from what he did at conference, that was about a five-second drop, so that's what we were kind of hoping for."

Cary-Grove's other qualifier was freshman Nick Jasinski, who was the runner-up in the 100 backstroke in 53.09.

The Jacobs co-op team was short-handed due to the absence of one of its top swimmers, junior Francis Ogaban, who was injured in a car accident Friday night. According to coach Rick Andresen, Ogaban was "pretty banged up," which cast a sad pall over the team.

Barrington led the way with six champions out of 12 total events, all of whom advanced to next weekend's state meet at New Trier. The Broncos also had eight total qualifiers, the most among a crowded field of strong squads, including Stevenson, which won the team title with 238 points.

"We talk about it every day at practice - incremental improvement," Barrington coach John Valentine said. "The team mindset for today was to try to have best times across the board. I think what we saw was vast improvement on some of the individual swims. Hopefully we'll have better times even this coming week up at state."

The Broncos were led by a paid of Colins - O'Leary, who won the 100-yard butterfly (51.52 seconds) and set a school record in the 100 backstroke (50.93), and Cross, who did likewise in the 200 individual medley (1:55.58) and the 100 breaststroke (58.16). The pair also led off the winning 200 medley relay team, which set a pool record in 1:36.20, teaming with Andrew Fish and Mitchell Gavars to get the job done.

Saturday was about redemption for O'Leary, who took second in the 100 fly and 100 back last year's sectional. Never mind the fact that he got to state in both events - it still stuck in his craw.

"It feels really good," he said of achieving his second trip to state, but he added preparation this time around will be different. "I need to keep on working hard at practice, but not all the way, because I remember at state I didn't do that well because I peaked more at sectionals than at state."

Cross was just happy he stuck his freestyle in the 200 IM, slipping past Palatine's Alex Bartosik, who qualified as the runner-up in 1:55.85, handily beating the state qualifying time of 1:58.35.

Also qualifying for state for Barrington was Gavars, who won the 500 freestyle in 4:41.50, and Chase Lesniak, second in the 100 breaststroke in 1:00.27, just a hair ahead of the state qualifying time of 1:00.50.

Gregg Voss contributed to this report