DCST’s Miller has Perfect Meet at IM Xtreme Games DCST’s Alexa Miller had a perfect meet at the USA Swimming IM Xtreme Games in Indianapolis, IN by having personal best swims in all five events offered for her age group. In order to enter this meet, swimmers had to have a certain minimum score in the USA Swimming IM Xtreme events; therefore, the competition was very exclusive. The five events offer for her age group, 11 year old girls, were the 500 Freestyle, 100 Backstroke, 100 Breaststroke, 100 Butterfly and...

DeKalb County duo helps Beads win fourth straight swimming title By KEVIN DRULEY Comments (No comments posted) E-mail this story Print this story Comments Share WINNETKA – Mackenzie Powers and Emily Launer commute from DeKalb to Aurora each day to attend Rosary High School, and continue to grow fond of the long drive and each other. "Having Emily in the car talking, it's not that bad," said Powers, a senior in her second year driving the sophomore Launer. "We get along great." Swimming brought the two together years ago at...

Powers, Launer pace Rosary in Day 1 By ERIC VAN DRIL - [email protected] Comments (No comments posted) E-mail this story Print this story Comments Share WINNETKA – For the Rosary girls swimming team, this seems familiar. Rosary’s girls swimming team has won the IHSA state championship over the last three years and this year, the Beads have placed themselves in perfect position to win another title after dominating Friday’s preliminaries. Rosary head coach Bill Schalz likes where his team stands. “Today is where you put yourself in position to win...

Jepsen shocked by 200 time By JON STYF - [email protected] Comments (No comments posted) Sycamore senior Casey Jepsen will swim in the preliminaries of the state meet at New Trier in the 100 and 200 freestyle on Friday. (Beck Diefenbach - [email protected]) E-mail this story Print this story Comments Share DeKALB – When Casey Jepsen touched the wall and looked up at the scoreboard at the St. Charles East Regional last Saturday, she was in shock. The Sycamore senior saw her time in the 200 freestyle race, 1:53.19, and thought...

Beads carpool together By JON STYF - [email protected] Comments (No comments posted) E-mail this story Print this story Comments Share SYCAMORE – Every weekday morning this fall, Emily Launer has gotten a ride to school from Mackenzie Powers. It’s a 45-minute drive from Powers’ house in Sycamore to Rosary in Aurora – where the pair are swimmers – and most of the time the conversation turns to swimming. But on Friday mornings, when they had to leave at 4:15 a.m. to get to the Beads’ early-morning practice, that changed. “We...

Campus visits: Taylor strong out of the gate By Nick Gerts Comments (No comments posted) E-mail this story Print this story Comments Share Kate Taylor has jumped out to a successful start in her first year with the University of Chicago women's swimming team. The former DeKalb swimmer helped lead Chicago to a six-team Maroon Invitational championship this past weekend after placing in seven events. Taylor opened the event with a second-place showing in the 200-yard IM in a time of 2:15.99. Then, as the fourth swimmer in the 400-yard...

Hundreds show for benefit breakfast By DANA HERRA - [email protected] Comments (No comments posted) Bill Gontko flips pancakes Sunday morning at a Knights of Columbus benefit breakfast at St. Catherine of Genoa church in Genoa. Proceeds from the breakfast benefited the family of 12-year-old Ashley Kim, a parishioner who suffered a spinal cord injury Sept. 12 in a swimming pool accident. (Dana Herra - [email protected]) E-mail this story Print this story Comments Share GENOA – At the slowest part of Sunday's benefit breakfast at St. Catherine of Genoa church, there...

Waller inspires, Jepsen qualifies for state By ERIC VAN DRIL - [email protected] Comments (No comments posted) E-mail this story Print this story Comments Share ST. CHARLES – During Saturday’s St. Charles East regional, the DeKalb-Sycamore co-op swim team accomplished two major goals they set at the beginning of the season. Senior Casey Jepsen qualified for next week’s state meet and junior Grace Waller returned to competitive swimming to help lift the team to 95.50 points and a 4th-place finish “It was an awesome meet,” DeKalb-Sycamore head coach Leah Eames said....

DCST moved to 6 – 0 on the season with wins over Rockford, Dixon and Freeport. As a team, DCST had 154 new career best individual swims. Moreover, DCST had 61 swims which were a swimmer’s first time achieving a particular time standard this season. The breakdown of the time standards achieved was: 43 new District qualifying times, 16 new Area qualifying times, and 2 new National qualifying times. DCST had 50 swimmers with at least two personal best times. These swimmers were: Ty Ament, Dillon Anderson, Maxwell Buck, Kelsey...

Waller returns to the pool By JON STYF - [email protected] Comments (No comments posted) E-mail this story Print this story Comments Share DeKALB – When Grace Waller was first diagnosed with cancer last November, her goal immediately became getting in shape to get back in the pool and swim with her DeKalb/Sycamore co-op teammates. There was never a guarantee that could ever happen. But today, when the Barbs compete at the St. Charles East Sectional, the junior and two-time state qualifier will be in the pool swimming the 200 freestyle...