West Chicago’s Dunn has some fun
Kelly Dunn is busy at the state swimming and diving meet this weekend putting the icing on the cake that has been her West Chicago four-year swimming career.
Dunn finished in the top six in both of her races in Friday’s prelim to qualify for today’s championship round, and she helped lead the West Chicago 200-yard freestyle relay team to a ninth-place finish and admission to Saturday’s consolation race.
Dunn was sixth in both the 200 and 100 freestyle events to advance to the championship final.
“I was more excited than nervous,” Dunn said. “Because this is the last time I’ll be doing this in high school. But I did a good job of calming myself down. The 100 was a better race for me.”
She admitted that there was some nervousness before the 200 because of the repeated delays due to timing mechanism malfunctions early in the meet at the Evanston pool.
Many of the heats started after delays of 10 to 15 minutes or longer, breaking the swimmers’ concentration.
“I really wanted to go and the delay was a distraction,” Dunn said. “My coach (Nick Parry) just told me to go and have fun with it. And once I started swimming it was fun and it’s good to know I’ll medal tomorrow no matter what.”
Parry believes the talented Dunn can finish higher on Saturday if she just makes a few adjustments.
“It was an OK preliminary race, but there are still some things we have to clean up,” Parry said. “I think the delay got her overly excited. Her pacing could be better. She wasn’t as aggressive in the first 50 as we would like. You can’t take a break when you’re racing in the top six. She has to be aggressive the entire race.”
Parry believes Dunn is capable of making those adjustments.
“She’s a big-meet swimmer,” Parry said. “And there’s nothing bigger than Saturday at state. The race will prove who can show the best. Hopefully, it will be Kelly.”
In the 100 Dunn’s 51.89 broke the West Chicago record, held by the great Wildcats sprinter Jackie Vavrek.
The Wildcats’ 200 freestyle relay finished with a time of 1:38.26.
Joining Dunn on the relay were three sophomores, Theresa Hock, Maya Skorupski and Yvette Kruk.
Skorupski finished 11th in the 100 backstroke.