A numbers' game
Waubonsie Valley swim team hosts, wins pentathlon
AURORA -- With more than 200 high school boys competing in 133 races here Saturday afternoon, one might think the Waubonsie Valley Aqua Pentathlon is a day of chaos. But in reality, it is a relaxed and fun event.
Each participant swam in five events, and each event had 27 heats. Neuqua Valley displayed its depth, tallying 21,455 points to claim the nine-team meet. Normal finished second with 21,015 points and Waubonsie Valley scored 20,609 points to grab third place. The top five finishers for each school accounted for the final score.
(Jon Cunningham / For The Sun)
Results
1. Neuqua Valley 21,455
2. Normal 21,015
3. Waubonsie Valley 20,609
-- The top five finishers for each school accounted for the final score.
"That's the benefit of a coach putting a kid in this meet at this time of year because it's about halfway through the season, you get them in all their races and you might discover a little surprise here or there," Waubonsie coach Luke Payette said. "The kids get a chance to see how they're developing over time.
"That way you're not worried about a dual meet where they only swim their strengths," Payette continued. "You let them have some fun and let them try some other things."
Neuqua's Kevin Overholt netted 4,481 points to capture the first-place medal while John Williamson of Normal nipped Waubonsie's Jim Zuponeck by six points for second place. Neuqua placed five swimmers in the top 10 while the Warriors' top five finished in the top 18.
Jack Poletto (4,174 points) and Taylor Pattison (4,151) finished 11th and 12th, respectively, and Gabe Baginski (4,064) was 16th. Adam Kozak scored 3,908 points to finish with a medal at 18th place.
"I was trying to score a little more points than I did," said Zuponeck, who tallied 4,312 points. "I only scored seven more points than I did last year when I got second."
"We've been training really hard so I'm a little fatigued, but so is everybody else," Zuponeck added. "I think it was a really good performance as a team overall. My individual was OK."
West Aurora junior Connor Wiltse garnered 3,886 points to place 19th and receive a medal. Oswego Co-op scored three medalists. Junior George Minkel (3,855) was 20th, freshman Dylan Coonradt (3,797) was 22nd and junior Justin Reppy (3,765) claimed the final medal spot at 24th.
"I wasn't sure (about my performance) at first, but that last race made me happy," said Wiltse, who finished the 200-yard freestyle in 1 minute, 53.65 seconds. "I finished strong. That was one of my best races ever. My goggles filled up right after the start, so I kind of didn't want to swim it; but then it felt good so I just went."
"We brought 15 guys which is the most we've had in a long time, and 10 of them are brand new to the sport," said West Aurora coach Joe Neukirch. "For some of these guys it's the first time doing these events. In an atmosphere like this where it's laid back and fun, they were able to come out and show us where they are in a particular stroke."
The four other events were the 50 freestyle, 100 butterfly, 100 backstroke and the 100 breaststroke. Swimmers were awarded points based on their time rather than their place.
"I found out how far we're progressing," Oswego Co-op coach Deryl Leubner said. "We started the season with a long way to go and we're about halfway there. We're predominately a freestyle team, so swimming those off events is kind of out of our strength. But we did a great job. We've got more depth than I thought we had, and we've improved a lot from where we started."
