St. Francis swimming program picking up speed

Matt Guarascio reached the boys state swimming finals once, as a senior at Benet Academy.

He called it “an unparalleled event in my life.”

Guarascio, coach of St. Francis’ third-year boys swim team, gives his one ticket to the annually sold-out state finals to the squad’s “rookie of the year.” The program’s development has the coach hoping sooner rather than later St. Francis will be participating instead of watching.

“This year I’m really excited about our relays, and a couple of our individual swimmers have been very close to a state time,” said Guarascio, who has athletes from Winfield, Carol Stream, Roselle, West Chicago, Warrenville and other towns on the squad.

Guarascio is high on such Spartans sprinters as the senior-sophomore brother combo of Marc and Michael Barrowclift of St. Charles and Naperville junior Ray Hilger, and first-year diver Kevin Purdom of Glen Ellyn, who in one season has adapted his Level-10 gymnastic skills to an array of dives.

Guarascio has seen numerous records fall but knows the program’s progress will be more marathon than sprint.

“Two years ago when I took over the team, we had a group of boys excited about swimming but they didn’t know much at all about what competitive swimming was all about at the high school level,” said Guarascio, who succeeded inaugural coach Chris Flamion.

“So we’ve come a very long ways from looking at it as fun and playing games in the pool to adhering to a strict, intense training regimen, and being able to enjoy reaping the benefits of that process. We’re enjoying the success that’s come along with hard work.”

As important as the times in the pool, the times out of the pool are crucial to success.

“The team has become really tight,” said Marc Barrowclift, citing team breakfasts and a dinner that helped unify the small group of 15. Both the boys and girls teams “adopted” a family around Christmas and bought them presents.

“We’ve really come to know each other as opposed to when we first began and no one really knew who the other person was,” Marc Barrowclift said.

A computer tech type who also has performed in more than 10 theatrical productions at St. Francis, the St. Charles student didn’t swim with the Spartans as a junior. Balancing athletics, schoolwork and theater was difficult, he said, and honestly, he didn’t have that much fun. His younger brother rekindled his fire to rejoin the team.

“I was planning on giving up swimming because my experience my sophomore year was not the best,” he said. “Mostly because of the pool. I know it sounds like excuses, but the pool was just horrid.”

Barrowclift cited fluctuating water temperatures in the pool they used two years ago — swimming in dizzying 93-degree water one day, and another instance when the boys emerged nearly blue from the cold.

Guarascio credited St. Francis athletic director Paul Linden with having since located quality facilities. The Spartans now train in pools at Naperville North and Bartlett high schools and at Central Park Athletic Club in Lisle.

“I think a lot of coaches would be jealous of what I have to work with,” said Guarascio, who is assisted by another Benet graduate, Mikey Beran. “And our school doesn’t even have a pool.”

St. Francis competes against powerful Marmion, Benet, Brother Rice and Loyola and other schools in the Metro Catholic Conference. Last year the Spartans’ full squad didn’t compete in the varsity conference meet, and finished fifth on the frosh-soph level.

At 10 a.m. Saturday at Fenwick, St. Francis’ boys will bring the whole squad to the MCC varsity meet in Oak Park.

“We’re very excited,” Guarascio said. “I think the other coaches in our conference recognize how much we’ve improved over the last two years, and I as a coach am very proud of where our swimmers are now.

“Even though we’re not going to be able to compete with those powerhouse teams in our conference, we hope to finish in the top half and possibly medal in some relays and some individual events, which is quite exciting for them and for me. I’m very optimistic about what they’ll be able to do this year.”

They’re No. 1

The Naperville Soccer Association’s Under-17 girls Premier Fury team, coached by Naperville’s Rade Martinovic, is ranked No. 1 in the country by the National Soccer Rankings and SoccerinCollege.com.

“We put Naperville on the national map big-time,” said Martinovic, a former 17-year professional player.

The Premier Fury U17 club, which since December 2009 has gone undefeated, went 6-0-1 in their division of the 2010-11 U.S. Youth Soccer National League. They qualified for the 2011 Youth Soccer National Championships in Phoenix, July 26-30.

These soccer furies also won their level at the 2010 Midwest Regionals, which sends them to that championship in Dayton, Ohio, in July.

The Naperville-based club is chock-full of local high schoolers: Zoe Swift and Jennifer Korn (Naperville North), Cat Caniglia (Benet), Lexi Peterson (Wheaton Warrenville South), Flo Beshiri and Jess Bronke (Downers Grove South), Courtney McHugh and Christina Ordonez (York), Lauren Shroyer (Hinsdale Central), Rachel Miller (Waubonsie Valley) and Ali Stratta (Neuqua Valley).

A Holiday national

Matt Granger, a fourth-grade teacher at Shafer Elementary School in Lombard and a Wheaton resident, is one of four new former athletes to be inducted into the Judson University in Elgin. The school is scheduled to celebrate its 2011 Athletic Hall of Fame inductions Friday.

Granger was a four-year letterman for the Judson Eagles. As a sophomore in 1986 he earned all-district by both the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) and the National Christian College Athletic Association (NCCAA), also taking home First-Team All-America honors from the latter.

A three-time NCCAA all-district player out of Holiday, Fla., in 1987 Granger was the NCCAA scholar-athlete of the year as he helped Judson to a seventh-place finish at the national tournament. The team’s 1988 MVP and captain, during his stay Granger helped the Eagles to a record of 54-26-9 with 27 shutouts. He capped his career as Judson’s 1988-89 scholar-athlete of the year.