Huntley Swimming Finishes Fifth At St. Viator Invitational

The Huntley boys swim team had swam for six days in a row – beginning with last Friday's meet against Illinois Math and Science Academy, the program's first-ever meet – heading into the St. Viator Invitational, but that didn't hold back the upstart Red Raiders Wednesday evening.

The Huntley swim team finished Wednesday's Invitational with 59.5 points, an amount which placed them in fifth place out of nine teams. St. Ignatius won the meet with 184 points and St. Viator placed fourth with 79 points.

Huntley received several quality swims at St. Viator, including three individual top-six finishes. Junior Jakub Petyniak placed in the top six in both of his individual events, finishing fourth in the 50-yard freestyle (24.21) and fifth in the 100-yard breaststroke (1:07.33). Huntley's Chris Cazel, who finished sixth in the 100-yard backstroke (1:03.39), was also a key component in Huntley's fifth-place finish.

"I think that was a really good outcome," Petyniak said. "When we first [heard] the scores coming out – I  think it was after the 500 free (the meet's seventh event) – we heard that we were in fourth place and our team was kind of shocked that we were in fourth place against really good teams in our area."

Overall, the Huntley swim team was pleased with Wednesday's outcome. There hasn't been very much time for rest thus far because it's so early in the season and the Red Raiders are a brand new team currently adjusting to the high school swim meets.

"I'm surprised that they swam as well as they did coming out of a full school day," coach Rachael Schwingen said. "We swam Friday night, Saturday morning, we had practice Sunday, practice Monday and practice Tuesday. That's six days now without a whole lot of rest, so I'm pretty happy with that."

Huntley swimmer Alvin Wong knows that there will not be a lot of time to rest throughout the season, both between and during meets. Wong, Petyniak, Cazel and Matthew Haage – the combination which swam Huntley's 400-yard freestyle relay – will normally be called upon to swim the maximum of four events in each meet.

"[Today was] pretty good. I wasn't expecting much," Wong said of Wednesday's outcome. "High school is a pretty new thing for me [because] I don't get much rest."

To make up for the lack of rest between events and the lack of depth on the Huntley varsity swim team, Wong and his teammates know they must lean on each other's support when they begin to tire. Only three contests into the program's first swim season and the team has already learned how to support each other both during practice and at swim meets while facing quality competition.

An example of supporting this notion occurred near the end of the St. Viator Invitiational. During Petyniak's race in the 100-yard breaststroke, Wong, Cazel and the rest of the Huntley swim team were heard shouting encouragement to their teammate across the pool. Wednesday's vocal encouragement, according to Schwingen, is part of a larger trend she has seen in practice every day.

"They are very supportive of each other," Schwingen said. "I think they're a great group of kids. Some of them know each other from swimming together previously. They've been pretty supportive of the new guys who haven't swam before. They help them out in practice."

One of the other highlights of the meet for the Red Raiders was Huntley's performance in the 400-yard freestyle relay. Swimming in the final heat, the Red Raiders fell behind St. Viator as Petyniak, swimming the anchor leg in the relay, dove into the pool. By swimming in the first lane, which was the closest to the Huntley bench, Petyniak was cheered on by his teammates and managed to outswim St. Viator's Jack Miller for fourth place in the event.

"In 400 freestyle relay, I think we dropped about half a second off our best time, so I was really happy with that," Petyniak said. "When I dove in, I kind of saw that St. Viator was ahead of us a little bit and at the turn they were still ahead of us so I wanted to put all my energy in beating [them] and [scoring] some quality points for our team."

Although this is Petyniak's third year of high school swimming, representing Huntley in a relay was not something he had done until last Friday. Swimming relays with his teammates is a new experience, yet it has quickly become one of his favorite aspects of swimming for Huntley.

"It's actually pretty exciting," Petyniak said. "Freshman year, I was all by myself at conference and sectionals. Last year, we had four guys go, but since we weren't an official team, we couldn't have a relay [compete]. But right now swimming and representing our school (in relays) is awesome. It feels great."

Up Next: The Huntley boys swim team will compete in a triangular meet against Glenbard West and St. Charles East on Dec. 14 at 4:30 p.m. The meet, hosted by St. Charles East, will take place at St. Charles North.