Breakers swim past St. Clair, enter conference meet at 7-1
The O’Fallon Breakers enter the final week of the regular season at 7-1 after defeating a good St. Clair County Club team last Tuesday, 310 – 225.
This week, the team traveled to Trenton for a weather make-up on Tuesday and then prepares for Saturday’s 10-team Midwest Conference Meet at O’Fallon Memorial Pool, starting at 9 a.m.
“We’ve had a good season,” Breakers Coach Kirsty Stooke said. “There are some very good teams in this league. St. Clair is one of them. In fact, I’d say they are stronger than any other team we’ve faced other than Highland. They are not an overly large team in terms of numbers, but they have good swimmers in most every age group. So a win at their pool is huge. Now we have to close out the regular season strong at Trenton and then get ready for Conference.”
Against St. Clair, the Breakers basically split the relays but won the meet with solid individual performances across the board.
Leading the way were six O’Fallon swimmers that have proven to be mainstays all season – each sweeping their individual events on a night when it really mattered. On the girls side, Samantha Stook (25 free/25 back/25 fly in 8-under girls), Shelby Bushong (50 breast/100 IM/50 back in 11-12 girls), and Natalie Edwards (100 free/100 IM/100bacl in 15-18 girls) all swept through their age group events. While on the boys side, Michael Meyer (100 free/100 back/50 fly in 13-14 boys) and brothers Matthew (50 free/50 back/50 fly in 11-12 boys) and Michael Stooke (25 free/100 IM/25 fly in 9-10 boys) exhibited the same dominance.
Other key wins were logged by Jake Howey (100 back/50 fly), Will Richards (50 breast/100 IM), Logan Luechtefeld (25 free/25 back), Noah Hughes (25 free), Ella Peterson (25 free), Julia Scherrer (25 breast), Alex Hattan (25 breast), Sierra Workman (100 breast), Yanni Guskey (100 breast), Sophia Toner (100 IM), Drew Hopkins (25 back), and Will Suydam (25 back).
So with a 40-1 dual meet record over the past four seasons, one would think the Breakers should be a shoe-in at the Conference meet this Saturday, right?
“Not so fast,” according to Coach Stooke. “While we won most meets this season rather convincingly and our lone loss was against Highland by a mere 22 points in the season-opener, the conference meet is a completely different format.
“The top 16 in each individual event score points and relays are especially important as a win there scores 40 points. So team depth – particularly quality depth – is critical. Highland is huge – theyhave branched out and built a team from throughout the area. And St. Clair will do well in the relays and score big there. And as luck would have it, we have some good swimmers who will be out of town for this one. But I’m confident our kids will do well. We’ll just see where we fall when the final points are tallied.”
This story was originally published July 18, 2016 at 11:22 AM with the headline "Breakers swim past St. Clair, enter conference meet at 7-1."