St. Charles North tired…and victorious

They may be anxious to get to sleep when the meet is over, but St. Charles' swimmers never get tired of the East vs. North girls dual meet.

Friendships borne through club season and rivalries continued through high school careers make this one of the signature dual meets for the area.

Despite heavy training regimens, both teams brought their desire to race on Thursday in the latest renewal of the rivalry. St. Charles North defeated St. Charles East 101-85.

"I felt pretty good," St. Charles North senior Taylor Reynolds said. "I was a little tired. We've had a pretty hard week of training. But overall, I think we swam pretty well."

Just to make things interesting, North Stars coach Rob Rooney challenged swimmers like Reynolds and Angie Chokran -- who each swam in both the 200-yard freestyle relay and the 400 freestyle relay with an individual even in between. That meant each swimmer competed in three of the last four events.

"It was mentally difficult," Reynolds said. "But we have the training to help get us through it."

Reynolds won the 50 freestyle and the 100 backstroke in addition to her relay swims. Chokran was victorious in the 200 individual medley and the 100 breaststroke.

"I thought we swam OK," Rooney said. "Winning the meet is nice. But I think I saw a team that had more enthusiasm a couple of weeks ago than they did tonight."

Rooney said the solution to that lack of enthusiasm may be due to the work level -- though he said solutions need to be found as the work load is not going to decrease any time soon.

"We're dead," Rooney said. "That's where we need to be. Our desire has got to step up."

St. Charles East coach Joe Cabel similarly challenged many of his swimmers. Diana Gehrman, for example, swam the 500 freestyle then came back and anchored the 200 freestyle relay. Gehrman won the 500 and the Saints won that relay. Gehrman led off the Saints' meet-ending and meet-winning 400 freestyle relay as well.

"I made a lot of my times," Gehrman said. "A lot of the girls on the team did really well."

Gehrman was also second in the 200 freestyle to teammate Caitlin Dauw. Dauw also won the 100 butterfly and continued to show her recovery from last season's illness.

"We had a lot of great performances by a lot of kids," Cabel said. "I could keep going for awhile. We had a lot of good times and a lot of good swims."

St. Charles East's workload is entering its heaviest stage of the season.

"There's a lot of whining in the morning," Cabel said. "But it's good when you can swim well in the afternoon. We're where we should be."

Cabel said getting a good Thursday-Saturday performance is the next goal. The Saints swim at the Downers Grove Invitational on Saturday.

St. Charles North returns to its training schedule and does not compete again until its Oct. 6 St. Charles North Invitational, one of the top meets in the state.

That same day, St. Charles East hosts its College Events meet and the two meets combined will attract most of the top teams in the state to the city.