Warren responds, grabs 3rd-place trophy
Matthew Conway could have sulked.
Could have felt sorry for himself.
Could have thought seriously about booking the next flight to Guam.
But the Warren junior swimmer did none of the above after getting disqualified in the consolation heat of the 100-yard butterfly at Saturday’s boys swimming and diving meet at Evanston.
He’d been told he false-started.
“I wasn’t sad,” the Blue Devil recalled. “I was upset, really upset.
“But not for long,” Conway added. “I knew, right away, I had to calm down so I’d be ready for my next race (400 free relay).”
Warren, at the time of the DQ, was in a battle for third place with Hinsdale Central, Sandburg and Mundelein. It had three more chances to generate significant team points: senior Danny Conway (500 free), senior Chad Church (100 breaststroke), and that 400 free relay.
Danny Conway finished third (4:27.24), behind New Trier’s Reed Malone (4:21.02) and Hinsdale Central 500-free stud Danny Thomson (state-record 4:18.86); Church, having the swim weekend of his life, also bronzed, clocking a 57.8 in the meet’s penultimate race.
Warren trailed Hinsdale Central by 5 points, as both schools prepared to race in consolation heat of the 400 free relay. HC had qualified 12th; Warren was seeded 11th.
Blue Devils coach Chris Bertana, hours earlier, had decided to tweak his relay’s order. Senior Sean Conway, the second leg in Friday’s prelims, swam the third leg on Saturday, with junior Matthew Sweet shifting to No. 2 duty.
“Sean Conway,” Bertana said, “is a better swimmer when he has to play catch-up. He loves it, absolutely loves it, when he has to battle from behind.”
Danny Conway, as usual, got the unit off to a brisk start; steady Sweet did his swift thing; Sean Conway chased down a guy ahead of him; and Matthew Conway, still around, served as anchor.
“I’d never seen (Matthew Conway) swim as fast as he did in those last 10 yards,” Church marveled.
Warren’s crew finished seventh (3:09.9) in the heat; Hinsdale Central took 12th (3:12.5).
Warren had caught – and passed – HC in the team standings.
It also got to pass around a third-place trophy, after amassing 80 points to HC’s fourth-place total of 73 points (Sandburg also scored 73).
New Trier (250) and Naperville North (130) went 1-2.
“We never gave up hope, never lost faith,” Sean Conway said. “Our coaches, after the DQ, told us we couldn’t change the past, and that we had to move on.”
“We definitely rebounded well.”
The third-place showing ranks as the best in program history, by miles and miles. The Blue Devils’ previous best state result was their 14th-place finish last year.
“So many ups and downs today,” a relieved, and drained, Bertana noted. “But we battled, didn’t we? I’m so proud of what our team accomplished today.”
Mundelein also got bit by the DQ bug on Saturday, in the 200 free relay. But the Mustangs still placed a program-best sixth (71 points), one spot ahead of their state finish last winter.
Mundelein junior Connor Black had a hand (two hands, actually, and two legs) in three runner-up performances Saturday. He silvered in the 50 free (20.54) and 100 free (45.3) and exploded for a sensational butterfly split (21.31) in the 200 medley relay (second place, 1:33.97); with sophomore Art Kasemets and seniors Bryan Wiener and Matt Marcotte).
“Connor’s split … wow,” said Mustangs coach Rahul Sethna. “That has to be the fastest fly split, ever, in that relay.”
The angriest swim Saturday might have been completed by Wiener, who used the emotion to win the consolation heat of the 50 free (21.4), barely ahead of Church’s eighth-place 21.41.
“Bryan was not happy (Friday),” Sethna said, alluding to Wiener’s 12th-place 21.46 in Friday’s prelims. “He had a tough start, and he jammed his turn.”
Wiener then capped his breakthrough season with a third-place 50.31 in the 100 backstroke on Saturday.
Stevenson senior Langston Fitts, meanwhile, ended his prep career with a pair of fourth-place swims. The fast Pat went 21.28 in the 50 free and 46.63 in the 100 free.
He also joined classmates Chris Hodges, Ryota Kuwahara and Daniel Shtivelberg for 11th place in the 200 free relay (1:27.32).
“You want one word to sum up Langston’s season?” said Stevenson coach Greg Hartman, whose club (38 points) tied Lake Forest for 10th place.
He politely declined, briefly.
Then uttered two words.
“Very impressive,” Hartman said.
Later, he elaborated.
“Langston,” he said, “proved how talented of a freestyler he is, today more than ever. Fourth place, fourth place … tremendous, tremendous. Enough said.”
Fitts’ teammate, junior James Lichtenstein, let his board work do the talking for him on Saturday. What it screamed: high scores. The Pat earned nothing but 6s and 7s in each of his final three plunges, allowing him to climb from sixth place after prelims (286.95, eight dives) to third place after 11 dives (405.15).
“James likes the big-meet experience,” said Pats diving coach Amy Inselberger. “He wasn’t intimidated in the least; and he was focused, relaxed.
“Fun to watch,” she added.
Lakes coach Dave Auston got to witness an Eagle place in the top six in the 100 breaststroke for the second year a row on Saturday. Junior Kyle Aerne took fifth in the event (57.98), one year after Daniel Le, then a sophomore, finished third in the 100 breast.
Le transferred to North Carolina last summer.
“A nice, nice kid, “Auston said of Aerne. “But it’s also easy to notice how competitive he is. I saw him (Friday), all alone, sitting and focusing hard on what he had to do before his race.”
Libertyville sophomore Alex Snarski, the only Wildcat to advance to Saturday’s finals session, placed 10th in the 100 fly (51.08) and 10th in the 100 back (52.32).
The bulk of Saturday at state, Lake County-wise, belonged to Warren’s resilient Blue Devils.
Danny Conway, after receiving a bronze medal for his school-record 4:27.24 in the 500 free, looked back at Friday’s 500 prelims, when Thomson and Malone sped to 4:19 times.
“Insane … That was insane,” recalled Conway, also runner-up in the 200 IM (1:49.42) on Saturday. “I was behind the blocks when they finished, waiting to swim my heat. I saw those times, and I took my goggles off. I had to; I wanted to. And then I applauded.”
Conway and his mates, about an hour later, heard applause.
Rounds and rounds.
Waves and waves.
They were all for Team Warren.
Da (local) judge: Warren diving coach Shawn Stephens served as a state finals diving judge on Saturday. His son, Sage Stephens (WTHS, ’11), finished seventh in diving at state last year.