Swimming: Galesburg takes top honors at Rocky meet
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By Shannon Heaton | Monday, September 15, 2008 |
Galesburg’s swimming and diving team was hoping to retain the momentum the Silver Streaks started last year as Western Big Six Conference champions.
After two dual victories and an invitational win last weekend at Macomb, plus Saturday’s strong performance at the Rock Island Relays, consider it momentum sustained after a second invite win.
The Streaks won six of 12 events and finished no lower than fourth in any others, easily outpointing Big Six rivals United Township (179 points) and Moline (164 points) to win the meet with 233 points.
“I spread my team out pretty good, but we still ended up winning more events,” Galesburg coach Ray VanHootegem said.
Just before the second scheduled break of the day, Quincy loaded up its 500-yard freestyle relay (50-yard leg, followed by 100, 150 and 200-yard legs in succession) and swam a strong 5-minute, 8.53-second clocking in the first of two heats.
In the next heat, VanHootegem was as animated as he had been the entire day, exhorting his entire team to cheer on their teammates. The Galesburg fans also made their presence felt, and the result in the water was a 5:08.13 time, Galesburg’s fourth event win of the day — and a likely meet-clincher.
“I figured after Quincy did that, we’d get second,” VanHootegem said of the time, which was 17.58 seconds faster than third-place Peoria Richwoods. “We got a good start from our 50 girl (Natalie Statham), and everybody built on that from there.”
Carrying a large chunk of the weight was junior Lauren Albert, who swam legs on all three “traditional” relays — the 200 medley relay and four-person 200 and 400 freestyle relays — as well as a win in the two-person 200 free relay.
Statham, a sophomore, and juniors Kathleen Varner and Sarah Katchen all were part of three winning relays for Galesburg.
“We’ve all gotten a lot better between where we’ve started off (timewise) this year compared to where we finished last year,” Albert said. “We’re pretty focused.”
Moline’s Alexa Harris and Shannon Doh and UT’s Gabrielle VanSpeybroeck were double-winners to lead their teams. Both teams won two events, with VanSpeybroeck teaming with Alyssa Busch to win the 400 medley relay and with Sasha Johnson in the 200 breaststroke relay for the runner-up Panthers.
“I figured we’d be middle of the pack. It’s our third meet and we had a meet Thursday, so I didn’t know how we’d come back, but we dropped some times,” UT coach Dave Busch said. “We’ve got some kids who aren’t used to these big meets, but we swam well.”
Harris and Doh won the non-traditional 400 freestyle relay and also took first in the 200 butterfly relay for third-place Moline. Pleasant Valley finished eighth in the meet (108 points), with Morrison ninth (65) and the host Rocks 10th (53).
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