With the girls swimming regular season win

E-mail this story

Print this story

Share

With the girls swimming regular season winding down this week, Crystal Lake Central has emerged as the team to beat heading into the Fox Valley Conference meet Nov. 5 at Woodstock North.

The Tigers are 5-0 on the year in conference meets and have one FVC dual remaining Friday against Cary-Grove.

Central coach Lindsay Mernitz said that her team is swimming well and looking forward to defending their FVC championship, but anticipates a close competition at conference.

“We’re looking strong,” Mernitz said. “It’s going to come down to the relays.”

If it does, the Tigers may be tough to beat, particularly in the two freestyle relays. Marisa Barton, a state qualifier last year in the 50-yard freestyle, has swam the state cut time in the 50 and is close in the 100 freestyle.

Sophomore Nikayla Dahl is also near the state cut in both and provides the Tigers with a potent one-two punch in the free relays.

Relay drought: As tough as it is to qualify for state in an individual event, getting there as a relay team is even tougher.

In order to make the state cut in relays, a team essentially needs four swimmers who are at or near the qualifying standard in the corresponding individual event.

For example, the state qualifying time in the 200-freestyle relay is 1:39.79.

That comes out to 24.94 seconds in each 50 split for each swimmer.

That is just one-tenth of a second slower than the qualifying standard in the 50 freestyle.

The 400-freestyle relay is only slightly easier, with a relay team needing to average 54.6 in each 100 split. That’s six-tenths slower than the cut in the 100 freestyle.

An area team hasn’t qualified a relay team since 2005, when three teams made it. Crystal Lake Central qualified a team in the 200-medley relay and Cary-Grove qualified in both freestyle relays.

The Trojans team included Allie and Kate Aherne in their senior seasons and freshman Kimberly Kalenda. Also on those teams was senior Meghan Pearl.

Kate Aherne and Kalenda both qualified in the 50- and 100-freestyle events that year. In total, C-G had four qualifiers in seven individual events that year.

The Tigers’ medley team was Megan McArdle, Natalie Walker, Kelsey Gomberg and Kelly Hogan. McArdle qualified in the 200 individual medley and butterfly and Walker made it in the breaststroke that year.

Upcoming meets: Cary-Grove at Elgin, 5 p.m. today; Dundee-Crown at Jacobs, 4:30 p.m. Wednesday; Huntley at McHenry, 4:30 p.m. Thursday; Cary-Grove at Crystal Lake Central, 4:30 p.m. Friday.