Barrington's goal is simple

Returning state qualifiers has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?

Barrington swimming coach Jim Bart is never one to get too worked up over something. With five Broncos returning to this year's team with state-meet experience, he's remarkably calm.

"It's a good nucleus for our team. They'll be our leaders in the water," Bart said. "They think we'll have a pretty decent season. We're swimming fairly close to lifetime bests to start the season. We'll keep it going."

Four-year varsity swimmers Sam Barnett, Ben Redpath and Nick Santoro have been making a difference on the Broncos their entire careers.

Juniors Brian Marko and Justin Yu have been just as strong and equally visible on Barrington's swimming result sheets.

Barrington's goal is simple -- improve upon last year's state meet finish.

"Hopefully, we'll defend our conference title and use that as a springboard for sectionals and state," Bart said.

"We thought we could've done better (at state last year). We're looking for a little more the second half of the meet. We have a lot of good leadership. If we could do a little bit better than last year, that would be great."

While Barrington certainly has some talent, that doesn't mean it has an express ticket to the conference, sectional and state meets.

The Mid-Suburban League is always deep with talent.

Over the years, Fremd has been a team that has reminded Barrington of that.

Fremd boasts returning state qualifiers Varun Shivakumar, Andrew Heideman, Sam Childs, Spencer Sophie and Alex Mikolajewski.

"This year should be quite exciting for Fremd boys swimming and diving," said Vikings coach Nicole LaBeau. "With five returning state competitors plus more who have developed during the off-season, we have growing expectations."

Around the West, there's also a lot of fresh talent on Palatine, Conant, Hoffman Estates and Schaumburg.

For the Pirates, Adam Heckelsmiller was strong last year and is back.

"This team is excited about rebuilding our strong tradition and will work hard to be competitive in our conference," said Palatine coach Katie Kupka. "With a pretty young team this year, we're hoping to be competitive with the top teams in our conference as we have in the past."

The Saxons, which have the promising Mike Kehoe back, enter a new chapter with coach Tom Gallagher. Gallagher may be new to the boys, but he led the girls to many successful seasons over his 24-year tenure as coach.

The East half of the MSL should be interesting as well.

Defending division champs Hersey will have its work cut out with significant losses. But it still has a lot of talent on deck, including Tony Ponzo.

"We want to continue to improve individually and in the conference standings each year," said coach Tod Schwager. "Our team goal is to hold on to the MSL East title this year."

Unfortunately for Hersey, there are other teams eyeing that title.

Buffalo Grove would certainly like to get its share of the MSL back. Prospect may surprise a few teams this year, too.

"I think that we're going to be a deep team," said new BG head coach Jamie Klotz, who's now in charge after many years as assistant. "Everyone has things to work on. We will work on those areas and we're going to continue to work on (them)."

Then there is Prospect.

"Since every scorer from our sectional team returns, I would expect us to be better with another year of experience under our belt," said Prospect coach Dick Mortesen, whose team has the leadership of Charlie Mau. "Our goal is to break into the top half of the conference, but we know that will be difficult with some great teams in the MSL."

Rolling Meadows was also on the rise last year. Although swimming without graduate Jeff Grovak, the Mustangs do return A.J. Adams, Stephen Gerbatsch, Jeff Dykstra, Luke Shafer and Tyler Diers. Wheeling standout Charlie Maczko is also back.

It's no secret Barrington is the team to beat.

But this year should be a good one for MSL swimmers. There are a lot of good matchups and returning swimmers.

The result should be lots of good races and MSL faces in February's state meet in Evanston.