St. Charles East looks to defend sectional title

It is all about time making time, dropping time, missing time and of course, bettering the qualifying time.

This is the nature of the IHSA sectional meets, which take place on Saturday. The state does send sectional champions to the state meet, held next week at Evanston. But whether St. Charles North and St. Charles East, competing at St. Charles North or Rosary, competing at Metea Valley, the times in all events are sure to be faster than the state cuts.

So the issue then becomes how many girls in each event swim faster than those standards. Finish eighth but below the cut and you've punched a ticket to the state meet.

For the first time all year in girls swimming, the only thing that really matters is the clock.

“We go by the clock and it's our goal to get as many qualifiers as we can to go to Evanston,” St. Charles East coach Joe Cabel said. “It's a big meet, but it's not the biggest meet and we know we need to swim some good times on Saturday.”

The state meet is similarly prioritized in terms of swimming fast times, meaning the stopwatch becomes paramount for the next eight days.

“That's true,” Rosary coach Bill Schalz said. “Place doesn't matter. Time is all that matters.”

Last year heading into the sectional meet, there was much discussion about the times being used by the IHSA for qualifying. Those numbers shift every year and many times dropped farther than normal as swimmers used the now-banned high-tech suits in competition in 2008.

This year, there is a one-year removal from that situation, but times have dropped further in all but two events the 50-yard freestyle and the 100 freestyle. This means some swimmers will have to “suit up” use the more aerodynamic suit often reserved for the state meet in the sectional meet. This doesn't necessarily negate the impact of the resting process known as tapering, which produced large time drops for elite swimmers at the state finals. But it is an indication of how electrically fast Illinois remains in the world of high school swimming.

“Early in the season, I was worried how many kids we were going to get through,” Schalz said. “I felt a little better coming away from the conference meet. But there's no doubt that we're still going to have to suit up a few kids at sectionals. There's just no way around it. The bulk of our girls, we won't have to, but there are a few.”

North Stars coach Rob Rooney said the work done to adjust the time standards is a bit of art and a bit of science. If the standards are too low, too many swimmers will qualify for the state meet, crowd the deck at Evanston and work to the detriment of all athletes. But if they are too high, only the fastest swimmers will qualify, which goes against the participatory nature of the state meet.

“I'm sure there will still be races with a lot of kids in them,” Rooney said. “There's a committee that looks at those, and the cuts always seem to fall the right way. The committee always does a good job with them.”

That said, Rooney admitted he will be making some adjustments to try to get a maximum number of swimmers to the state meet.

“We have not suited a relay at St. Charles North in quite some time,” Rooney said. “We might have to and that's how fast these cuts have gotten to. You make a mistake and don't suit a kid, and you may be rolling the dice a little bit, and you don't want to do that and deny the relay a chance to swim at the state meet.”

Schalz said that as the bulk of the input that goes into shifting the cuts is based on the previous year, and as swimmers did not use the super high-tech suits in 2009, the impact shouldn't be as severe this year.

Rooney said one thing the state might consider is breaking the state meet into multiple classes. There are 253 full teams and a further 82 schools only entering individuals vying for state honors this year.

“I'm one of the few who thinks we need a 1A and 2A setup,” Rooney said. “One of the things it would do is give some smaller schools a chance to get to the state meet. They don't have those chances now and I wish they did. There's enough pools in this state to have two meets, and I wish it would happen.”

The IHSA hands a plaque to the winning team of each sectional. As the goal is to qualify swimmers for the state meet, this sometimes creates a weird situation. A swimmer who finishes fourth but outside the state qualifying standard does not go to the state meet but helps her team more toward winning the sectional title than a swimmer who finishes eighth and under the state cut.

“It's hard because you want to win the meet but the whole point of the meet is to get kids to the state meet,” Schalz said. “Naperville North and Neuqua Valley are going to be really good competition for us.”

St. Charles East won a sectional meet for the first time since 2001 last year and will battle host St. Charles North, which saw an eight-year run as sectional titlist end in 2009.

The Saints have worked through a situation in which they did not have a home pool to use. Construction work at the Norris Aquatic Center has meant both St. Charles high school teams have used the North pool for training and competition this year. Cabel said hopes are high for his squad.

“We have a young team,” Cabel said. “This isn't going to be the end for this group. We have trained through everything this year. The kids have dealt with late practices and early mornings and they've been better about it than even I have. To get to the end now, they're excited, and I don't blame them.”

Cabel said he didn't want to put his team in the favorite's role for the sectional.

“It's a wide-open meet,” he said. “There's a lot of different teams that have a lot of good simmers in every event. It will be a fast meet, and in order to win it, you're going to have some things go together.”

Rooney said his team would love the chance to hold the sectional title plaque again.

“There's only 12 of those handed out in the state,” Rooney said. “I would rather swim fast at the state meet than win a sectional plaque, but it's a nice feather in the cap for the girls. There is a purpose to sectionals and a reason they hand out the plaques. It's not always all about qualifying. But we will go there to swim as fast as we can and our goal is to make some state cuts.”