Depew switches up, Naperville Central opens up

It doesn't seem to matter which stroke Jeff Depew swims or which heat he enters.

The Naperville Central junior won what he considers his weakest event, the 200-yard breaststroke, in a personal-best time of 2:16.40 and did it from the next-to-last heat to help lead the Redhawks to a decisive win at the Hinsdale South College Events Invitational on Saturday.

Naperville Central earned 291 points to easily outdistance second-place Hinsdale Central, which nosed out Wheaton co-op 161-160. Fremd was fourth at 146, followed by Waubonsie Valley's 144 and Barrington at 133.

"(Coach Mike Adams) just put me in the breaststroke to see what I could do," Depew said. "He told me to keep my strokes long and to make sure I had wide pullouts. I followed his advice and even surprised myself."

"Jeff can do a lot of things, and he's really strong in the backstroke," Adams said. "We wanted to get another backstroker in and we asked him to do the breaststroke instead. When you get a contribution like that from him that tells you something about our team. We have a great depth and all the guys are versatile.

"We had a lot of swimmers step up today, and that's the way it's been all year."

Depew also won the 400 IM in 4:12.55 as teammate Nate Weeks finished second and Greg Alexander of Barrington was third.

Depew and Weeks swam the first two legs of the winning 400 medley relay team, which also featured Matt O'Brien and Keith Piper and finished in 3:40.47.

Piper won the 200 backstroke in 1:57.33 as teammate Sean Lehane finished second.

The Redhawks Danny Tucker also had a big day, winning both the 50 freestyle as Fremd's Dustin Anderson finished second and Lake Park's Aaron Casper came in third, and the 100 freestyle in 48.70, with Hinsdale South's Sebastian Ostrowski getting the runner-up spot and Fremd's Dustin Anderson coming in third.

The Redhawks also took home the gold in 200 freestyle relay (Tucker, Mark Menis, David Xie and Tony Zhang) and the 800 free relay (Tucker, Piper, Lehane and O'Brien.)

"Coming out of Christmas break, you're coming into a pretty good meet here," Adams said. "We're not looking for great speed, but we're looking for people to race. So far the kids have done a great job racing. The relays were very solid."

Jeff Freund of Fremd finished first in the 200 butterfly, ahead of the Redhawks' O'Brien and Weeks.

"I can't explain it, but I was close to my best time," said Freund, who also finished third in the 500 freestyle. "We've been training heavily, so we're tired. But this is an important meet because there are some people here I'll meet at state, and I wanted to see where I am in comparison to them."

"It was a nice race for Jeff," said Fremd coach Nicole LaBeau about Freund's butterfly. "He was great off the walls and he built to a strong finish. He's a true competitor, whether it's holding them off or catching up to them. He doesn't let anyone have an inch on him."

Barrington coach John Valentine was pleased with his team's work for the day, especially Alexander's third-place finish in both the 400 IM and the 200 breaststroke.

"Overall, our swimmers have improved their times from last year," Valentine said. "They were really strong on starts and turns, two things we've been working on in practice. Greg's 400 IM represented a big time-drop for him."

Hinsdale Central's Danny Thomson won both the 1,000 and the 500 freestyle races and Wheaton co-op's Collin Hogan won the 200 freestyle.

Hinsdale South's Jordan Dyson won the diving competition.