Cary-Grove places third at Buffalo Grove
Not even halfway through Saturday's Buffalo Grove's swimming meet, Hersey still thought it had a chance to win even though conference rival Prospect had the lead.
"After the fifty-yard free, Prospect was us up by half a point," Hersey coach Rob Lindgren said.
It would seem that Prospect had the edge because a lot of its stronger events are near the end of the meet.
"They have some strong events and we have some strong events," Lindgren said. "When they went ahead by ten points going into the 400 relay, I thought we had a shot at making up that time."
The Huskies did that and more, beating Prospect 365-359 to place 1-2.
The Fox Valley came next, with Cary-Grove placing third with 258 points, Dundee-Crown fourth with 236 points and Jacobs with 212 points.
Kimberley Kalenda led the Trojans, winning both the 500 and 100 freestyle at 25.92 and 55.44 respectively. Julie Oswald added a third-place finish in the 100 backstroke with a time of 1:05.62.
Jacobs, Cary-Grove and Dundee Crown stayed in their own little pack behind the two leaders. Cary-Grove just edged out Dundee Crown 258-236 to finish third and fourth, respectively.
"This meet is always tough," said D-C coach Kendra Everett, whose team has only had four meets this season. "That's why we like coming here because it gives us an idea where we are. As far as the lineup, we change it every meet.
"We're just getting started. This was our first tough varsity invitational. We have so many new swimmers this year. We have nine freshmen, and six of them are on varsity."
Both Karlee Munson and Teresa Champa found themselves among the Top-3 individually for the Chargers. Munson won the 100 backstroke with a time of 1:03.94, while Champa took second in the 200 IM at 2:23.34.
Jacobs' Emily Susmarski recorded a first place in the 200 freestyle at 2:03.93 and finished second in the 100 freestyle with a time of 58.16.
From the Upstate Eight Conference the Elgin/Larkin co-op finished with 83.5 total points, led by Hilary Ottaviano who tallied a pair of seconds in the 50 freestyle (26.51) and the 100 butterfly (1:02.58).
South Elgin's Rachel Musnicki won the 100 breaststroke with a time of 1:15.29 helping the Storm to a 123 point team finish.
Prospect coach Dick Mortsensen just had to admit it was Hersey's day.
"Our medley relay won and started out the day on a good note because that relay is not one of our loaded relays," he said. "Hersey just came to play today. They had great swims and great dives this morning.
"Diving and the 500 (freestyle), they outpointed us quite a bit. The 500 free and medley relay, we outpointed them quite a bit. This meet, you have to have three quality swimmers in each event. We're not quite there yet."
Buffalo Grove placed sixth, and with good reason.
"Given the holiday, we lost about a dozen swimmers and divers," said Bison coach Tom Mroz. "We had to get them from JV. But we can't use that as an excuse. 'Oh, we would have been so much better if so-and-so were here."