St. Charles North, Marmion map programs for swimming title

There are certainly countless swim teams where the main goal is to qualify what athletes they can for the state meet.

And there's nothing wrong with that. Sometimes, the maximum a program can achieve is one or two state meet swims, and achieving the best you can is always the goal of sport.

But when the goal is a trophy, that's when architecture becomes a part of the equation. Two programs in our area have put themselves on the state map in the last two years. In St. Charles North's case, the rise has been from a non-entity -- a brand-new school without any traditions, to a team that has narrowly missed a state trophy two years running.

The North Stars scored 101 points this year, surpassing the triple-digit mark at which teams become more than just decent-scoring squads. In fact, St. Charles North has surpassed 100 points two seasons in a row, making it more than a flash in the pan.

"I've loved coaching these guys this year," St. Charles North coach Rob Rooney said. "They're a great group of guys and it's been an honor for me to coach these seniors. They did everything I asked and they surpassed a lot of the expectations I had for them."

The North Stars certainly had plenty of talent returning. But they had also lost some great talent. Chris Peterson, Bobby Force and Doug Brooks. Those swimmers helped St. Charles North to fifth place in 2007, just 3 points from a state trophy.

Teams always suffer graduation-related turnover, and the North Stars entered this season with athletes in new roles, athletes with higher expectations but with expectations of going just a little better and grabbing one of the three trophies handed out by the IHSA.

St. Charles North missed by one place, landing fourth in the state, a fact that had as much to do with Glenbrook South's solid two-day performance as anything."

"You know what, these guys are awesome," Rooney said. "We talked about this all week. You can't control anyone else. You can only control yourself. This is two years in a row when you can say this is the fastest state meet in state history."

Being competitive in Illinois swimming is difficult just because there are so many strong athletes. The very abbreviated list of star swimmers in the last half-dozen years includes St. Charles East's Curtis Dauw and Jake Grosser, St. Charles North's Peterson, Lake Forest's Matt Grevers, Rockford Guilford's Brad Boswell, Champaign Central's Tyler McGill, St. Patrick's James Ridgeway and the star of this year's meet, Neuqua Valley senior Brian Alden.

St. Charles North is right there with those teams and athletes.

"If you would have said when we walked out of this meet last year that we'd be in the Top 5 or the Top 10, everyone would have said 'no way.'"

That's the tough part about building a team -- great athletes graduate. There is a literal stream of great swimmers in the state. To be among the best, you need more than one or two star athletes.

"We replaced the three that we lost with an entire team," Rooney said. "For us to be in this position is awesome. It's awesome for St. Charles North and awesome for St. Charles swimming."

It takes at least four athletes to make a successful state team. Naperville North finished fifth this year and scored 100 points. The Huskies did that with just four swimmers -- Conor Handley, Will Heidler, Jackson Hill and Phil Lechowicz. Most teams need a few more athletes than that.

But if 2007's near-miss helped the North Stars in the past off-season, being just a little closer ought to help them in the coming off-season.

"This was a very nice tradition-builder for us," Rooney said. "We've got half our (state champion) medley relay back. We've got a lot of good things."

For Marmion, the path has been a bounce from near-obscurity to one that is again among the Top 10 in the state -- which was a position the Cadets held in the late 90s, culminating in the 2000 state title.

Marmion finished eighth in the state meet last weekend in Evanston. The Cadets scored 64 points, up from 24 in 2007, and a marked improvement from 2005 and 2006, when the school had only one Saturday swim in the state meet.

"That's part of our evolution as a team," Marmion coach Bill Schalz said. "Next year, when we have all these sophomores and juniors back, we will have to be at that next step. We talked about that here."

While the Cadets had aspirations of joining the trophy hunt, they achieved a solid result. They didn't overachieve, but they didn't collapse either.

"We're a team that has to swim really light's out to get into the finals, and we did that (Friday)," Schalz said. "A lot of these guys who are swimming (Saturday), they're first-time finalists. Their goal was to make finals, and they did that. Unfortunately, their goal wasn't to swim in the finals. It's a different mentality."

Boys teams tend to advance as athletes mature. There are always a handful of freshman qualifiers, but they very rarely dominate the meet. When an impact freshman comes along -- as in the case of Peoria Richwoods' Matt Elliott, who won the 200 individual medley and the 100 breaststroke, everyone takes notice.

"Last year, we were able to get everybody to state without resting them," Schalz said. This year, we were able to get them to finals. We still need to take that next step. Swimming is really getting over that hump and getting into Bigs."

"Bigs" represents the championship final. Illinois splits its state finalists into a top six, who swim for the state title and a consolation six, whose best swimmer can finish no better than seventh. The pressure of making the Top 6 in one of the fastest high school meets in the nation frontloads the pressure to Friday.

"It is a different meet each day," Schalz said. "Because we have only 6 lanes while most meets have 8, it's that much harder to make finals. No one can relax."

Because athletes tend to improve as they mature, there is a natural churn to a team as swimmers graduate. Teams that are consistently near the top have a spread of athletes through the classes.

"We're losing Luke's points, and that's a lot of points right there," Schalz said. "But we also have Tommy Delves in the 100 and Tyler (Capen) in the IM and the backstroke. We've got Matt Lifka in the breast.

"That's four swims that could, realistically be in the top six. If those guys are individually in the top six, then our relays are probably in the top six."

Take those athletes, in addition to Matt Pircon, and the Cadets are dangerously close to having the minimum number of athletes to put a trophy run together. And they might be able to increase their team point total into triple-digits, which is not only a near-requirement to achieve trophy status, but is also a solid benchmark. Reaching the 100-point plateau certifies that a team is more than just a pretender.

"We certainly have that 100-point potential," Schalz said. "This was a year when we thought we could make a run for a trophy. An extra stroke here and a wobble there, and we didn't quite get there and were between seventh and 10th."