2004 Year in Review

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Morrison Girl's Swimming Competes in Sterling Water Warriors Invite

By: Lindsey Smith
Morrison saw it’s first records set in the second meet of their girls’ high school swimming season. The records weren’t set at the Morrison pool. They were set at the Sterling pool. They weren’t school records either. But they were meet records! Sterling hosted the first annual Sterling Water Warriors Invitational on the weekend of September 4th. Morrison finished third out of five teams with only eight swimmers to take home their first trophy of the year. Sterling finished first, and Belvidere took second. Newman took fourth and Rockford Christian took fifth. They scored 309 points, with 7 first place finishes. The Fillies did very good considering that they were short a swimmer, Rachel Fedyk, who was on a college visit. Because this was the first Sterling Invite, all of the first place finishes were meet records.

The meet was a normal meet, with all the normal events, and then some. The 100 free and the 50 free were then divided into three. There was a freshman 100 free, a Junior Varsity 100 free, and a Varsity 100 free. The 50-yard free was divided the same way. The Fillies won all three of the 50-yard freestyles and they won two of the three 100 yard freestyles.
Winning the Freshman 50 yard freestyle was Jamie Grau with a 27.59. Jamie won the event by a margin of nearly five seconds. Second place went to another Filly swimmer. Christina Justice stole second place by less than half a second from Lauren Oliver of Sterling. Christina’s time was 32.88.
Morrison went one-two in the J.V. 50 yard freestyle with swimmers Lindsey Smith and Erica Sanchez. Lindsey won the event, recording a time of 29.29. Erica followed behind with a 29.66. She beat Tina Venghaus, a senior from Sterling, by 0.45 seconds.
Michelle Bos and Amanda “Smiley” Smith took to the water for the Fillies in the Varsity 50-yard free. Michelle had the fourth best sophomore placing in the Varsity event, but unfortunately it wasn’t only sophomores in it. Michelle had a time of 30.48 to come in 11th. Amanda won the 50. Her time was 25.60, nearly two seconds faster than the second place finisher of Belvidere.
Kendra Kuehl took the water for Morrison in the 100-yard freestyle. She brought in another first place for the Fillies. Kendra was the only Filly swimming this time, so there was no chance of another one-two finish by Morrison. Kendra led all swimmers in this event throughout the whole event. She ended up winning by 7.31 seconds.
Lindsey and Erica again went looking for the one-two finish in another J.V. sprint. They got what they were looking for easily. Lindsey won with a margin of 8.41 seconds between her and the next competitor from a different team. Lindsey finished in 1:03.62. Erica was about six seconds off of Lindsey. Her time was 1:09.29. Rachel Donnely of Newman was the closest swimmer to either of the Fillies. She was about 2 seconds off Erica.
Michelle swam the 100-yard Varsity freestyle for the Fillies. She came in 7th with a time of 1:08.30. She just out touched Jill Scheidt of Rockford Jefferson by 0.17 seconds. Michelle missed 6th place by about four tenths of a second.
Finally done with the freestyle, let’s move on to the 100-yard backstroke. This was Megan Tenboer’s first event of the night. She finished fourth, just ahead of teammate Kendra. Megan swam the 100 backstroke in a 1:10.18. Kendra’s finishing time was 1:10.80.
Jamie Grau went to swim for a first place in an event that seemed impossible. Knowing that returning Sectional champ of this event, Emily Wike, a sophomore of Sterling, would most certainly be in the 100-yard breaststroke, Jamie would have to do her best to beat her. Jamie’s pulled off the upset before in her swimming career, but today wasn’t her day. She settled for second place, about 7 seconds behind Wike. Jamie’s time was a 1:15.91, beating all others (except for Wike) by a range of 4-28 seconds.
Megan Tenboer did extremely well in her second individual event of the night. She swam the 200-yard I.M. in 2:33.68. Megan finished fourth, but was less than a second off of third place.
The first relay win for Morrison came in the J.V. 200-yard freestyle relay. For the J.V. relay, Michelle led off. She handed a two second lead over to Christina. Christina touched in at the wall and Megan dove in for the third leg. Erica anchored the relay and touched the wall at 2:02.67. They beat the next closest team, Sterling, by just about 9 seconds.
In the Varsity relay, Morrison had two freshmen, one sophomore, and one senior claim the blue. Kendra led off the relay with a split of 28.43, and handed over to Lindsey in third place. Lindsey brought the Fillies to within second place and then touched in for Jamie to swim the third leg. Jamie caught up to the Sterling team that was in front and held strong to hand Amanda the tie for first. Amanda swam an awesome leg to bring in the win. Her split from the relay was a state time of 24.94. Unfortunately, as in track getting the state time at any meet doesn’t mean you’ve qualified for state. You have to swim the time at the Sectional swim meet. The Fillies beat Sterling by two seconds with a 1:49.72.
Morrison’s 200-yard medley relays both earned the red ribbon. Swimming the J.V. relay for the Fillies was Michelle, Christina, Megan, and Erica. Michelle swam the backstroke and handed off to Christina in second place, where they would stay. Christina swam the breaststroke and Megan swam the butterfly. Erica anchored again, swimming freestyle. Morrison’s time was 2:22.47. They were ahead of the Sterling “B” relay by 5.07 seconds. The Fillies lost to Sterling “A” relay by 8.06 seconds.
The final relay for the Fillies was the Varsity 200-yard medley relay. Kendra swam the backstroke and then passed off to Jamie in a close call for fourth. Jamie swam breaststroke and pulled to third place. Jamie finished and Amanda dove in for the butterfly leg. Amanda brought the Fillies to second place and passed off the Lindsey. Lindsey anchored the relay in freestyle and held the Fillies at second place. Morrison’s final time was 2:03.25. The Fillies beat the Sterling “B” relay by 2.73 seconds. Sterling “A” won the event by 7.41 seconds.
The Fillies had a pool party at their coach’s house (“Scuba” Steve Wilkins) later that night where they posed for their first team trophy picture.

by larryg
2004-09-12 21:52:47