Scouts swim to success at sectional

It was a lively sectional meet at Vernon Hills on Saturday, Feb. 21, as the Lake Forest Scouts swam for a chance to compete at the state championships. In the end, the Scouts beat out 11 other Lake County rivals as the overall winners, beating out Libertyville, 276-226.

The Scouts sent every swimmer who won their race to state.

“The way that we came together as a team was just incredible,” said Lake Forest coach Cindy Dell. “And they’ve been that way this entire season.”

The Scouts got off to a hot start, winning the first four events. Alexander Streightiff won the diving contest earlier in the day. Teammate John-Michael Diveris finished second to also qualify for states.

Lake Forest took the first swimming final of the day with the quartet of Daniel Smith, Symen Ooms, Michael LeMay and Dylan Boyd winning the 200-yard medley relay in 1:36.83.

Boyd came back to win the next event with a time of 1:39.42 in the 200 freestyle. LeMay proceeded to win the 200-yard IM in 17.92. Ooms won the 50-yard free in 21.09.

“I was going into it with a bit of a cushion, knowing that I was going to get first place,” said Ooms. “That was really a race against myself, my own time.”

Ooms got back on the podium in the 100-yard freestyle, at 46.55, which saw him and three other swimmers qualifying for states.

“My biggest goal today was to win the 100 free,” Ooms said. “That was probably my highlight, I’d say.”

Lake Forest tapered off a little bit starting with the 200-yard freestyle relay, but Dell said there was a reason for this.

“We had some younger swimmers swimming in some events where they don’t have the experience that some of these older swimmers have,” she said. “So it was more important for them to get the experience of the meet and see what they need to do to get to State.”

In the final race of the day, the 400-yard freestyle relay team of Boyd, Smith, LeMay and Ooms were able to come back and beat the Wildcats in the final lap, beating them by three-tenths of a second, with a state qualifying time of 3:10.36.

Before the race, Dell told her swimmers, “Let’s put the exclamation point on it. You deserve it, you know, you rule the pool, this is our event.”

With the meet over, attention turned to next week, and next year.

“This upcoming week’s going to be a lot of taper,” Ooms said. “Some low yardage.”

“We’re just going to stay positive,” Dell said.