Since New Trier’s girls almost never lose the competition at the Central Suburban League South division championship swim meet, it’s usually a race for second place in the team standings.
And the Trevians usually dominate the individual races, too. But every once in awhile someone from Evanston rises to the occasion and interrupts the New Trier monopoly.
Saturday it was Abby Romisher’s turn to make a splash. The Wildkit senior ruled the 500-yard freestyle race and scored Evanston’s first individual championship since 2021 while leading ETHS to a runnerup finish in the team standings Saturday at Deerfield.
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New Trier totaled 470 points to 275 for Evanston. World-class swimmer Annika Parkhe, who broke the conference 200 individual medley record by an astonishing 5 seconds, led Deerfield to 3rd with 210.
Just as important for Evanston was the fact that the meet showed the Kits are in position to do even more damage --- in terms of state qualifiers --- than head coach Kevin Auger might have thought was possible coming into the season. The Wildkits have that opportunity next Saturday when they compete at the Glenbrook North Sectional meet.
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“Right now we’re at 100 percent lifetime bests,” Auger explained. “The girls are really swimming well and we got close to state cuts today. Yeah, this is how you want the season to play out. We had a lot of nice swims today.”
Romisher was only seeded 4th coming into the race, based on best in-season times to date, but wasn’t about to be denied even though at this stage of the season there’s always an unknown element regarding when (and if) distance swimmers are going to drop their times drastically.
Sometimes it happens at a conference meet, sometimes at a sectional --- and sometimes not at all.
Romisher’s training took over. She pulled away from Haley Krupp in the last 200 yards and turned in a winning time of 5 minutes, 13.37 seconds that was 10 seconds quicker than her previous best swim this season and under the Illinois High School Association state qualifying standard of 5:13.47.
She won the race after boosting her own confidence earlier when she took runnerup honors in the 200 freestyle in 1:56.77, just off the state cut.
“It feels really good to be a conference champion,” said the Evanston senior. “After that 200 I was really ready to go, I felt a lot more confidence in myself. I had a goal to get to 5:13 and I really wanted to meet that goal. I felt like whatever it took, I just had to do it.
“Now I’m hoping maybe I can go 5:11 at the sectional. That would be awesome! I just want to make it to State.”
“That wasn’t necessarily unexpected by Abby. It was just a really good swim,” Auger added. “She had a good moment today, and she set herself up for that with her attitude and the training she’s had all year. If you work hard all the time, things drop into your lap once in awhile. She was set up for it. I think the (results of) the 500 freestyle (Georgia Stoolmaker and Malia Schoonyoung were 5th and 6th for ETHS) proved that we put in the work this year.”
The Wildkits finished the meet with a flourish in the 400 freestyle relay. New Trier placed 1-2 in the race, but Evanston’s third place team of Annika Wartowski, Cameron Corbett, Romisher and Vanya Gojakovic contributed to the “feel good” aura for the Kits with a time of 3:35.50 that represented a 5-second drop for the quarter and was also under the IHSA standard.
Corbett, a junior, turned in Evanston’s best split at 53.60.
“I can’t believe we made the state cut!” Corbett exclaimed. “This is a big surprise. This wasn’t on my radar at all. All four of us were oh, so ready and we dropped so much time. When everyone does good like that, it really shows your training works.
“I definitely think now we’re where we want to be. We know now we can do this at State.”
Gojakovic continued to shine in her rookie season. The freshman scored a 4th place finish in the individual medley, in 2:11.64, and came back later to earn 3rd in the 100 backstroke in 58.60. Her best previous time in the backstroke was 1:00.48. The state qualifying mark is 58.44.
“She didn’t perform like a freshman, she performed like she’s done this 1,000 times before,” Auger praised. “She swam a great time in the IM after a rough start (misjudging the start of the race) and that backstroke time was the piece de resistance. She also swam her best time on the 400 relay.”
