St. Charles North proud of 10th-place state finish
St. Charles North tied the Wheaton co-op for 10th in the state meet Saturday, and they did so by scoring in four events.
Junior Joe Myhre finished sixth in the 50-yard freestyle and was fifth in the 100 freestyle. The school's 200 freestyle relay of Stephan Hutchinson, Myhre, Nate Bawolek and Ben Sherman placed fifth while the same four swimmers placed 12th in the 400 freestyle relay.
"I thought we had a really good meet," St. Charles North coach Rob Rooney said. "I'm really proud of where we are today. I'm not going to shortchange what we accomplished this year, but I'm excited for next year."
From a team with few expectations during the regular season, the North Stars steadily improved, then used victory at the St. Charles East sectional to propel themselves forward. A solid series of prelim swims led to Saturday's team and individual successes.
"We've got a lot coming back next year," Rooney said. "We've got more coming back than a lot people know, and more than maybe we know. It's been a great year aquatic-wise for us. I'm really proud for our boys. We're top 10 and that's a far cry from where we were last year."
In 2014, the North Stars finished 34th and scored 6 points in the state finals. They scored 41 points on Saturday.
"I don't like walking out of here saying 'we got a learning experience,'" Rooney said. "I'm looking at it in a lot of ways. From where we started to where we finished, I'm really happy about it. For us today, we swam well. I think we could have done a little more, but we did well. And I'm looking for next year that we know what we're doing."
Myhre becomes the third North Stars swimmer after Chris Dieter and Chris Peterson with two top six finishes in one swim meet.
"I'm pretty happy with my races," Myhre said. "I wish I could have done a little better with them. But I left it out there and I can't complain."
Seeded first in the 50 freestyle, Myhre made one error in Saturday's finals, a poor turn at the race's midpoint. Given the brevity of the race, there was not chance for him to make up the lost ground.
"I dove in and just hit that wall kind of wrong and they got me," Myhre said. "But I'm still kind of happy with it. It's an improvement on last year and I've still got next year."
A year ago, Myhre did not qualify for the Saturday finals in any event in his first trip to the state finals. The experience of that state competition helped move him into a strong club season, and he said he expects the same to be the case as he re-enters club swimming again.
"My only goal this year was to make finals," Myhre said. "Last year, everything felt really new. This year, I felt really familiar with it. It helped a lot."
Marmion had two swims in Saturday's finals. Senior Andrew Kasper was 10th in the 200 freestyle and freshman Will Kamps was 12th in the 500 freestyle.
"Across the board, we had a really good meet," Marmion coach Bill Schalz said. "We just don't have the depth. We have to look at these guys who are coming back to get in the water right away. The guys who were here were year-round swimmers. But we've got some guys at home who, if we can get them training, we can come to state a year from now and have a shot to be a top 10 swimmer."
Kasper and Kamps were among the leaders for the Cadets throughout the season, and Kasper's will be missed while Kamps' will continue.
"We have great leadership across the board," Schalz said. "We have some juniors who do train year-round and they form the nucleus. It was nice for (Kamps) to have (Kasper.) They trained together and they were doing different sets to everybody else."
Andrew Schnell and Chris Meyer are the only two Marmion swimmers to score in individual events all four years in high school and only those two and Jonathan Burgess, Tom Lowenthal and Matt Pircon scored in relays and individual races every year in high school for the Cadets. Kamps is one step toward joining that elite group.
"He had a great meet," Schalz said. "He swam well. He had a couple of mistakes in the IM or he would have been in that event too. The 500 was a great swim. He dropped 8 seconds from his best time and had big time drops in both events."
Kamps has been swimming since he was 7, and he said he's already looking forward to the preparation for his sophomore high school season.
"High school swimming's a lot different to club swimming," Kamps said. "It's a whole different atmosphere. (Friday), I came out and swam as hard as I could. It didn't turn out the way I wanted to, but I'm happy to have this 12th-place finish."