Community Corner
St. Charles Swim Team Earns State Championship Title
The youth swim team won the 2011 Speedo Age Group Championship for the long course season for the first time in its 20 year history.
The St. Charles Swim Team recently won the state championship, breaking two state records, as well as 30 team records.
The competitive team, which includes 360 youths from St. Charles, Huntley, Bartlett, South Elgin, Geneva, Batavia, West Chicago, Naperville and Rockford, won the 2011 Speedo Age Group Championship for the long course season for the first time in its 20 year history. Competing against 90 teams with 1,196 athletes, the team won by more than 270 points.
The swimmers also delivered 13 champion first-place finishes in the competition.
The new state records were in two girls relays:
- In the girls 10 & under 200 free relay, the team of Linda Licari, Emily Jania, Anne Tavierne and Allison Wessel swam with a time of 2:07.72, breaking the state record of 2:08.49 set by the Fox Valley Swim Team in 2004.
- In the girls ages 13-14, 800 free relay, the team of Lucy Johnson, Lauren McCormack, Erin Hart and Meagan Popp swam with a time of 8:46.68 breaking a 2009 Wheaton Swim Club record of 8:51:89.
Additional new state champions from the St. Charles Swim Team include:
- Meagan Popp: 200 breaststroke, 400 individual medley and 200 individual medley
- Kristen Czarnecki: 100 breaststroke and 200 breaststroke
- Linda Licari, Emily Jania, Anne Tavierne and Allison Wessel: 10 and under girls 200 medley relay
- Henry Bliss, Keegan Hawkins, John Whitehurst, Nate Baxter: 10 and under boys 200 medley relay
- Kristen Czarnecki, Audrey Guyett, Heather House, Sydney Jesko: 11-12 girls 400 free relay
- Erin Hart, Emma Kuszynski, Lauren McCormack, Meagan Popp: 13-14 girls 400 free relay
- Linda Licari: 50 backstroke
- Keegan Hawkins: 100 breaststroke
The team scored in every age group and within both genders; competitors won the 10 and younger and 11-12 age groups and finished third in the 13-14 age group.
Team coaches include Laurie Chokran, Denise Mitchell, Mary Dauw, Sara Quinn, Matt Munz, Brian Mitchell, Kent Pearson, Joe Cabel, Rob Rooney, Tim Lewarchick and Jon Cabel.
For more information, visit www.stcswim.com.
