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LT Sports Roundup: Five Swimmers Earn Berths to State Meet [VIDEO]

The Lyons Township boys swimming team's Danny McGuinness, Joe Shannon and Brendan Weibel qualified for the state meet in individual events, and McGuinness, Shannon, Peter Dore and David Freund advanced with the 200 freestyle relay.

Lyons Township junior swimmer Joe Shannon turned to see his time after the 100-yard breaststroke at the Fenwick Sectional Saturday

He needed to look again.

Shannon didn’t just drop an amazing 3.66 seconds from his seed time to qualify for the state meet. He also set a school record.

“He didn’t know he swam that fast,” LT coach Scott Walker said. “That’s the way the whole meet basically was. All of (our) kids couldn’t believe what times were showing up.”

Coming into the meet unsure of what would happen, the Lions collected remarkable time drops across the board and earned five entries for the state meet preliminaries Friday at Evanston High School by achieving state cuts at the sectional.

Sectional champions automatically qualify for state. Second-place Shannon (59.58) and senior Danny McGuinness (100 freestyle in 47.25) and third-place McGuinness (50 free in 21.63), sophomore Brendan Weibel (500 free in 4:47.97) and the 200 free relay of sophomore David “Texas” Freund, junior Peter Dore, Shannon and McGuinness (1:28.18) advanced by all beating their respective state cuts (1:01.28, 48.33, 21.98, 4:48.24 and 1:28.39) for the first time this season.

McGuinness is making his third state trip and Shannon his second. The Lions, who finished third (324 points), had 15 top-six finishes from its swimmers and divers and time drops among all 19 swimming entries, all but two by more than at least a second.

“It was that way all day long. They were totally flabbergasted,” said Walker, whose assistant swim coach is Dana Krolikiewicz.

“I could not be more pleased. At some point in time, it was like a fog. I was in a fog, kind of like a dream, a coach’s dream. All of that time is worth it when your kid touches the wall and pumps his first, or turns around and points his finger at you, or looks at the clock and can’t figure out, ‘Is that really my time?’ That’s the whole reward you want as a coach, and you only get it in four hours. And sometimes you don’t get it at all. My salary was paid by those emotions and watching those kids react when they finished their swims (Saturday).”

McGuinness qualified for state in the 50 free for the first time after taking 38th in the 100 free last year in 48.88. He has competed at state in the 200 free relay the past two years with LT finishing 13th last year (1:26.65) and seventh in 2010 (1:26.20). Shannon was at state last year along with McGuinness as part of the 200 medley relay.

Even though LT’s fourth-place 200 medley relay Saturday of freshman Jack Garrow, Shannon, sophomore Adam Kline and Dore (1:40.52) missed the 1:38.88 cut in the first swimming event, the drop from their 1:44.78 seed set the tone that better results were coming.

“We talk about how one swim isn’t just about you. Your swim is goignt o snowball and affect your teammates,” Walker said. “After the medley relay, they were like, ‘Oh boy.’ Then the 200 freestylers (freshman Ben Hewett and Freund) did what they did and they just kept feeding all day long. It seemed like we just kept getting faster as the day went on.”

In the 100 breast, Shannon easily beat the 1:01.28 cut by going from 1:03.24 to 59.58, edging the previous 59.59 school record set junior year by 2009 graduate Joe Hladik, a four-time, top-six state finisher now competing for the University of Missouri.

“Joe texted me about 20 minutes after the meet and said, ‘Tell Joe Shannon congratulations for breaking my 100 breaststroke record,’ ” Walker said. “That’s why I always talk to the kids that you need to represent not only you but also the guys that marched before you.”

McGuinness comfortably beat the 100 free cut of 48.33 by dropping 2.84 seconds from his seed. In the 50 free, McGuinness dropped .87 from his seed time to make the 21.98 cut with Dore fifth in 22.34.

Dore continued his momentum in the 200 free, dropping his second-leg cut down to 21.26, with McGuinness anchoring in 21.21. Freund, a move-in this season from Texas, swam the opening leg.

Weibel slashed his seed time in the 500 free from 5:07.16 to 4:47.97, beating the 4:48.24 state cut, with help from the previous race.

In that heat of the 500 free, freshman Ben Hewett went from a 5:08.71 seed to a sixth-place 4:50.17 after earlier dropping more than eight seconds in his 200 free for a fifth-place 1:48.37.

“When Ben got done swimming the 500 and Ben’s time went up, Brendan just looked at the clock and (was stunned). That’s exactly how it snowballs,” Walker said.

“I think a lot of it is just the buy-in to what we do when we rest (taper) around here. They all know they’re going to swim fast. More important, with this young group, was the fact that we talked a lot the last two weeks how we weren’t going to swim for time. We were going to go there and race. I was more impressed how the young kids stepped up in that kind of an environment. They were so relaxed and really confident in how they were prepared.”

State entries among the top 12 preliminary times Friday advance to Saturday’s finals in the championship heat (top six times) and consolation heat. As difficult as the state cuts continue to be and as well as the Lions performed at Fenwick, Shannon (17th) and McGuinness (18th in 100 free) are LT’s only state entries seeded among the top 20 based on sectional times.

Walker hopes the sectional and state experiences encourages the younger Lions to come into future seasons ready from the start.

“All of these drops are from three months from work. If these kids would understand, ‘If I can drop like that, what would I do if I came in better prepared?’ ” Walker said.  

“(Our start) was a lot of work with (Krolikiewicz) and myself trying to corral 70 boys, and 80 percent of them did not come into the season in shape. Attitudes had to be adjusted. We gave them boundaries and we were able to just get better as the season went along. Probably after Christmas break we’d gotten to where we wanted, but we wasted a break trying to do something we should have had on Nov. 22.”

McGuinness was the only senior in the sectional lineup, and Lucas O'Bryan joined Garrow and Hewett in competing as freshmen. Having similar peak performances at the end of the frosh-soph and junior varsity seasons at their conference meets also should help the mindset of the program.

“I think we’re really, really fortunate to come out the way we did. But what would we have done if we were prepared? Of course, that’s always me wanting more, but isn’t that my responsibility as a coach?” Walker said. “These kids have the same, if not better, talent and potential than what anybody on the (LT record) board has. But it requires work and commitment.

“We’re cleaning the soil and making it fertile and planting seeds all in one short period of time. Sometimes this would take two or three years and we probably gained another year.”

Fenwick Sectional results

Top five teams: 1. Fenwick 408, 2. Oak Park-River Forest 336, 3. Lyons Township 324, 4. Riverside-Brookfield 297, 5. Curie 216
LT individual results
(State-qualifying cuts in parentheses)

200-yard medley relay (1:38.88): 4. Jack Garrow, Joe Shannon, Adam Kline, Peter Dore 1:40.52
200 freestyle (1:45.63): 5. Ben Hewett 1:48.37, 8. David Freund 1:54.94
200 individual medley (1:59.06): 4. Brendan Weibel 2:01.32, 7. Lucas O’Bryan 2:04.58
50 free (21.98): 3. Danny McGuinness 21.63*, 5. Dore 22.34
Diving (369.45 points): 4. Craig Pace 339.25, 5. Matt Benz 310.15
100 butterfly (53.18): 10. Kline 56.14, 11. O’Bryan 56.28
100 free (48.33):
2. McGuinness 47.25*, 6. Freund 50.44
500 free (4:48.24):
3. Weibel 4:47.97*, 6. Hewett 4:50.17
200 free relay (1:28.39):
3. Freund, Dore, Shannon, McGuinness 1:28.18*
100 backstroke (54.42):
5. Garrow 57.37, 10. Ed Berzanskis 1:03.60
100 breaststroke (1:01.28):
2. Shannon 59.58*, 8. Sean McMahon 1:04.45
400 free relay (3:15.24): 4. Freund, Dore, Hewett, McGuinness 3:18.16

*-State qualifier

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