Upcoming meets excite Cabel

There's still plenty of time in the girls swimming season and nobody is more aware of that than St. Charles East coach Joe Cabel.

But all the same, time is beginning to run out, and Cabel is aware of that too.

So as the Saints prepare for this weekend's Upstate Eight Conference meet, they do so knowing they can still make corrections or fix imperfections, but that there isn't as much room for error.

"We have it in our club season and we have it in high school season, this time that we call Championship Season," Cabel said. "This is a fine-tuning meet. It is not the end-all. We use information we get from this meet. But we can also play around with this meet a bit, which is nice. We can still tweak it just a little."

The Saints have had a decent season but find themselves heading to St. Charles North on Saturday just outside the trio of favored teams. Waubonsie Valley and Neuqua Valley are expected to fight for the title, and the host North Stars will more than simply be allowing the UEC use of its pool for an afternoon.

Cabel was the boys coach at St. Charles East for a decade and won three state titles. He stepped away after a fourth-place finish in 2002 and spent four seasons away from coaching altogether.

He returned to head coaching last year and is now the head of both the boys and girls swim programs at St. Charles East. He said he likes what he sees in the girls portion of the conference as this year's Championship Season begins.

"There's a lot of parity which we haven't had," Cabel said. "With (St. Charles) North and Waubonsie (Valley) and Neuqua (Valley) -- those teams will duke it out a bit."

The Saints have their part to play, however, and expect to be ready to give as much as they can this weekend.

"We'll hopefully interrupt their plans in certain ways," Cabel said. "We have a great team. We may not have enough stats to win a meet like that, but we have a great core."

As the relationship between the two St. Charles schools matures, Cabel said he likes the nature of the rivalry between the respective swim squads.

"I think we'd be happy to have the trophy in this town, whoever wins the title," Cabel said.

Cabel's return has been joined by the hiring of former St. Charles coach Jennifer Heyer-Olsen at Neuqua Valley and the return to coaching of former Hinsdale Central coach Tom Schweer at Waubonsie Valley. Heyer won six state titles with the Saints and Schweer's teams won four boys titles.

"We have great coaches in this conference and we did before," Cabel said. "Rob's in that group too. Dan Witteveen at Lake Park and Rick Andresen out of the Elgin area -- you've got some people in the conference who have played the game for quite a while. You've got some very good swimming minds going."

"Rob" is St. Charles North coach Rob Rooney, who assisted in St. Charles, headed the Waubonsie Valley program and has been head of the North Stars program since its inception. The relationship between the coaches and teams of the two schools is warm, and that's important to Cabel.

"I think it's traditional that people have a little more sportsmanship in the field that we're in," Cabel said. "Maybe it's because we don't have the pressure of million dollar contracts in swimming. But there is certainly sportsmanship in this town -- in St. Charles -- at East as well as North."

One of Rooney's phrases has always been that the month in which we exist is often referred to as "Rocktober." This is the time to get things done and prepare for Championship Season.

That preparation is nearly done and the conference meet marks the shift from preparation to performance for the final time of the season.

"The kids have just worked really hard," Cabel said. "I know that's true where you are and whether it's girls swimmers or boys swimmers. But you get tired of working so hard and you want them to have a chance to show their wares in the water and see what they can do."