Tigers swim team qualifies three individuals, all three relay teams, Redbirds advance pair
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EDWARDSVILLE – Going into Saturday afternoon’s IHSA boys swimming sectional at the Chuck Fruit Aquatic Center, the Edwardsville High team had one goal in mind: Qualify as many individuals as possible and qualify all three relay teams.
Mission accomplished.
The Tigers will be sending senior Porter Levasseur in both the 50-yard and 100-yard freestyles, along with Logan Mills and McLane Oertle, along with the three relay teams, to next weeks state meet in winning the sectional with 278 points. O’Fallon was second with 153, Jacksonville third with 90, and Jacksonville Routt Catholic with 28.
That Edwardsville was able to qualify multiple individuals for the state meet, along with their relay teams, was a big accomplishment.
“Coming off a year, where we just had one individual qualifier,” said Tigers coach Christian Rhoten, “to a year where we’re having multiple individual qualifiers and all three relays is a huge jump as a team for us. They’ve definitely worked hard all season, definitely for this day. So, we’re going to go up to state, and hopefully, should be fun, see some good racing, and go from there.”
Although some of the swimmers didn’t win their races, their times met the state qualifying standard, which was a big feather in the Tigers’ caps.
“Oh, yeah, definitely,” Rhoten said. “The 100 (freestyle) and the 50 free were, I would say, the most stacked events. They had the most qualifiers individually, so to have four guys going 21-mid in the 50 is pretty fast for a sectional. They definitely had to work for it, but thankfully, they sneaked in and got those cuts, and now they can keep on swimming.”
There were big expectations for the relay teams as well, and all three teams won their races to qualify.
“We have a lot of guys, and that we’re really deep where we can mix up orders on relays,” Rhoten said, “which is really helpful when it comes to a meet like this, especially with the competition level in the 400 free relay; we knew that one was going to be tough against O’Fallon. So we were able to rearrange our relays so we were able to stack that one as well. And then, our 200 medley relay and our 200 free relay are, I believe, were EHS team records, so that’s kind of cool.”
Crevasse qualified in the 100-yard backstroke last year, but has swum well in both the freestyle events all season.
“I think he probably could have made the 100 backstroke cut as well this year,” Rhoten said. “He had a pretty good 100 freestyle in a meet in November; the last time he rested was in November, and he had gone 46.98, I believe, was his time from earlier this year. So with that being under the cut already, we knew he was probably a better shot in the 100 free.”
Mills qualified in the 100-yard butterfly, despite little time to rest between races.
“The 100 butterfly was really a tough race,” Rhoten said, “They were coming off a few events already, and we were moving right along as a meet already. They were definitely tired; I know they can go faster than that, both of them can, Logan and Noah (May). But that’s great that he won, and he gets to go up and compete against the guys in Chicago.”
Diver Owen Kauffmann was the only diver who competed and qualified with 391.85 points. Although he was the only diver, he still had to make sure he could qualify.
“He still could have (been disqualified) by failing a couple of dives,” Rhoten said. “So he didn’t do that; that’s what we were kind of focusing on, just don’t DQ. But, yeah, it was an easy road to state for him, but I can’t tell you how much he’s excelled in the last two years. He’s only a sophomore now, but the dives he’s learned have put him in a caliber where he could probably be somewhat competitive at a state level. And then he actually dove really well today, despite the fact he had no competition. He broke our team record by 56.3 points. So he blew away his old record from last year, so that’s obvious from last year he’s gotten a lot better.”
The three relay teams all won their races, which meant automatic qualification for state. In the 200-yard medley relay, the team of Matt Doyle, Oertle, Mills and Matt Mendez won the race with a time of 1:36.46, below the state qualifying time, while the 200-yard freestyle team of Mendez, Mills, Oertle and LeVasseur won with a time of 3:27.68. The 400-yard freestyle team of Doyle, May, LeVasseur and Mills took their race at 3:21.58.
LeVasseur finished second to Carter Nelson of Columbia, with Nelson winning at 21.02 seconds, but LeVasseur qualified below the state standard with a time of 21.19 seconds. Caden Akal of Alton was third at 21.52 seconds and Max Kostelac of Waterloo Gibault Catholic was fourth with a time of 21.72 seconds. All four qualified for state.
In the 100-yard freestyle, Nelson won the event with a time of 45.47 seconds, with LeVasseur second at 46.93 seconds and Akal third with a time of 47.28 seconds, with all three going on to state.
Mills took the 100-yard butterfly with a time of 53.71 seconds, and Noah Clancy of Alton winning the 100-yard breaststroke with a time 58.18 seconds, with Oertle in second at 59.63, both swimmers qualifying for the state meet.
Clancy also won the 100-yard backstroke with a time of 49.57 seconds, with Cole Junker of Mascoutah finishing second at 50.32 seconds and Michael Meyer of O’Fallon third at 53.06 seconds, all qualifying times.
Junker also won the 200-yard individual medley with a time of 1:55.26, and Matthew Stooke of O’Fallon First Baptist Academy won two events – the 200-yard freestyle at 1:46.42 and the 500-yard freestyle at 4:50.23.
All the qualifiers will race in the IHSA state meet next Friday and Saturday at New Trier High School in Winnetka, in suburban Chicago. Rhoten has a simple plan for practice going into the state meet.
“We’ll probably just maintain, right now, with where we’re at,” Rhoten said. “Porter will be the only one who will really have anything changing. He really didn’t rest for this meet at all; he had two days of rest, Thursday and Friday, and kind of just went in and hoped for the best in this meet. But he’ll definitely go into a full taper now for the state meet, because we think, individually, he can make some waves. And then our relays, I think our medley relay will be seeded pretty well. So we’ll probably focus in on that one, and then go from there.”
And with the exception of LeVasseur, this will be the first time for many of the Edwardsville swimmers to experience the state meet. Rhoten is looking forward to seeing them compete.
“Yeah, absolutely,” Rhoten said. “In fact, I know none of them have made it to state before, except for Porter. So we’re going to be able to take up some juniors, who’ll have the experience going into next year, which is going to be ver valuable. We have some sophomores and even some freshmen that we’re probably throw in some relays, and take them up there. So it should be a great experience. We’re looking forward to it, and we’ll leave on Thursday.”
Dan Brannan also contributed to this story.
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Dan Brannan also contributed to this story
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