North Stars top Saints as both teams focus on getting better

Like a Rembrandt that is still on its creator's easel, St. Charles North's boys swimming team is something more than a diamond in the rough -- but still not nearly the finished article.

If St. Charles East is a slightly lesser masterpiece, perhaps a Vermeer, the potential for the team is certainly apparent to the artists on the other side of town.

St. Charles North claimed this most recent cross-town swimming dual meet 111-69, though the way each team went about its performance was a key for both coaches.

"They did OK," St. Charles North coach Rob Rooney said. "They've got a long way to go. There's a lot of talent, but we've got to really hunker down and get those little things fixed."

Rooney said those "little things" are something he wants to keep between himself and the team. But those are the sort of things the North Stars will work on once the Christmas training period starts Friday.

But that training will begin to point the team toward the February sectional and state meets.

"We've got talent, you can see that," Rooney said. "You need nine or 10 guys to really be a force at the state meet. Within this group, we have nine or 10 guys. But it's got to be 10 guys doing the same thing."

That need for togetherness is by some core swimmers on the team, such as senior Jimmy Brooks, who won the 100-yard backstroke in the meet.

"We need to work together," Brooks said. "It's little stuff that we need to start doing. We all need to start working harder if we want to accomplish what we want to get done."

The training that will close the calendar year is more than simply a number of days of long practices strung together.

"If we get through this together, we learn to trust each other in the end and that's a very big part of it," Brooks said. "If we come out of it stronger than we went into it, that's a very good sign."

St. Charles East coach Joe Cabel admitted his team "struggled" on Tuesday.

"We didn't look very sharp," Cabel said. "We are swimming like we practice. I think our practices are sloppy and that's why we're swimming sloppy. We've got to up the ante in practice."

Cabel said he agreed that his team could be a very good one.

"Oh there's definitely the potential," Cabel said. "But if you're not focused in practice, you're not going to be focused in a meet. We have to make our practices better."

There will be plenty of practices before the end of 2007 to work on that focus. Like its sister school, St. Charles East embarks on its Winter Break training regimen Friday. Teams put their swimmers through two weeks of very intense practices in what is really a second preseason. Athletes come out of the workouts tired, but prepared for the final competitive meets of the season.

"It's still early in the season," St. Charles East's J.J. Baginski said. "There's still a little bit of room for error. With Winter Break coming up and the harder practices, we'll have more time to focus on the things we need to focus on."

Baginski had a solid meet, including a second-place finish in the 100 breaststroke. But he's still a masterpiece that's not fully-painted himself.

"I did OK, but I've still got stuff to work on," Baginski said.