For two days, Feb. 27 and 28, six members of North’s boys swim and dive team competed at the IHSA state meet. The competition took place in Westmont at the FMC Natatorium. At the meet, juniors Thomas McMillan, Josh Lack and Collin Beu represented North alongside sophomore Tyler Baumann and freshmen Hayden Rybaski and Connor Pluskwa.
Among the highlights of the state competition was McMillan becoming a two-time state champion in the 100-yard butterfly event with a time of 46.85 seconds, right before his second-place win in the 100-yard backstroke event.
North’s athletes first arrived at the state meet on Feb. 27 before having to compete in the preliminary competition the same day. There, North’s swimmers had to place high enough to qualify for the second and final day of the state meet.
“Everybody swims on Friday,” said McMillan. “It’s called prelims, and then if you’re top 16, you make it back to finals the next day.”
For the entire team, training for the state meet was a major part of the buildup to the competition. This year, boys swim head coach Robert Rooney focused on training his team to overcome any challenges they faced.
“Every year is a journey, and every year changes,” said Rooney. “This year, I think [training] was more about learning how to grow up and learning how to handle adversity.”
Another important part of the practice building up to the state competition was trying to make practices feel like the state meet. By practicing over and over again what they would be doing at the state competition, the swimmers would hopefully feel more comfortable during the actual state finals.
“[We try] to get practice as similar to the races as you can get so nothing feels foreign. Once you get to the race, you’ll get there and you can say to yourself that you’ve done it before,” said McMillan. “It’s all about consistency and repetition.”
Looking back on their season, North’s swim team sees their growth as very important for future seasons. In addition, the state team’s relative youth will be important to continue to improve and build on this year’s successes.
“I think the growth this year has been very important for our future,” said Rooney. “We’ve got a great team of underclassmen coming back, which I’m excited for, … [and] we’ve got a good group of young men that I’m looking forward to in both swimming and diving as we move forward.”
