Girls Swimming: Leyden hoping to peak at sectional meet

Updated: November 8, 2011 8:28PM

While the big prize for swimmers and divers at Saturday’s Downers Grove North Sectional will be qualifying for the state meet at New Trier held Nov. 18-19, Leyden coach Chris Cook will measure his team’s success differently.

The first-place finisher in each event from each of 16 sectionals in the state qualify for the state meet as do any additional swimmers or relay teams that go at or under the qualifying time. In addition, the first-place diver from each sectional advances along with any diver whose score is among the next 32 top-scoring divers from all sectional meets.

“Realistically, we don’t have a chance for anyone to qualify for State,” Cook said. “What we’ll be looking for is to continue the improvement we’ve been making most of the year. We had 45 girls with personal bests at (the Oct. 29) conference meet, which is just incredible. We’ll be looking to continue with that at the Sectional.”

Teams in the Downers Grove North Sectional are Addison Trail Coop, Fenton, Downers Grove North, Elk Grove, York, Glenbard West Coop, Conant, Benet, Lake Park, Wheaton North Coop and Wheaton-St. Francis. Montini, Lisle and Westmont won’t have full teams, but will have some individuals competing.

Some of the personal goals for the Eagles at the Sectional are Emilie Radziejewski , who has a personal-best 6 minutes 8 seconds in the 500-yard freestyle, breaking the 6-minute mark; Dana Laren, whose best time in the 100 backstroke is 1:10.67, breaking a 1:10 clocking; freshman Maja Pulka breaking her personal-best time of 1:02 in the 100 freestyle with a finish of :59; and sophomore Grace Wischmeyer, whose best time in the 100 breaststroke is 1:16, getting down to 1:14.

“This year has been so much about giving their best every meet,” Cook said. “We want that for one more meet this season.”

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