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When Warsaw heads to Syracuse for the Wawasee Boys Swimming Sectional tonight, the Tigers will be looking to win the sectional in the same fashion with which they've won most of their meets this year - with depth. Warsaw's team is larger than most and that has helped the Tigers to their first undefeated season of the '90s.
Warsaw coach Chris LaLonde never imagined that her team would go through the season going without a loss, despite some help from a big conference foe.
"This season's been a big surprise," LaLonde said. "I had no idea (that we could go undefeated). Northridge ran into some bad luck with losing some guys. Once I found that out I thought that the conference could be pretty close between Wawasee and us. I knew our team was a lot bigger than everyone else's and that's helped a lot."
It helped Warsaw to the conference championship despite without a single first-place finish. The Tigers did have eight second-place finishes, but the sectional looks like a similar situation to the conference meet. Warsaw has just two No. 1 seeds at the sectional and that could create a concern since teams don't move on to the next round of competition. Only those first-place swimmers will head to the state meet.
"It's all up to everyone on our team to swim really well because everyone's going to be after us," LaLonde said. "It could be really close. My guys could step it up or everyone else could step it up."
According to LaLonde, Warsaw's Dec. 6 meet with Elkhart Central was the critical point of the season. In just the Tigers' third meet of the year, Warsaw defeated Elkhart Central 109-77 in normal fashion. Elkhart Central had more first places than the Tigers 7-5. But Warsaw had nine second-place finishes and 10 third-place finishes.
"Elkhart Central always gives us a loss," LaLonde said. "We went in there and swam really well and then we began to think maybe this could be a good year."
For the Tigers to win the team sectional title, LaLonde looks at Wawasee and Bremen as the teams to watch out for. Bremen has four No. 1 seeds and Wawasee has two. And the Warriors definitely have the Tigers in their eyes.
"We're looking for the upset," Wawasee head coach Roger Karns said in no uncertain terms. "If you're ready to swim, you can capitalize on that, you can move up really well for Saturday or you can get stung. Hopefully, our guys are ready to swim."
#Both LaLonde and Karns see a lot of very tight races. They know that just the smallest of mistakes could drop someone from first to fifth, or even further.
"In the 200 (individual medley), there's less than a second between first and fifth," LaLonde said. "Whoever wants it bad enough is going to win it. The 100 fly is the same way. It's going to be whoever wants to get in there and go."
The prelims begin today at Wawasee Middle School at 5:30 p.m. The finals will take place on Saturday at 2 p.m.
Wawasee Boys Swimming Sectional
Seeds
200 medley relay - 1. Bremen, 2. Valley, 3. Warsaw, 4. Wawasee, 5. Rochester, 6. CMA, 7. Plymouth, 8. Manchester, 9. Huntington North
200 freestyle - 1. Schramm (Bremen), 2. Leininger (Warsaw), 3. Stacy (Manchester), 4. Cone (Wawasee), 5. Wandland (Warsaw), 6. Beall (Bremen), 7. Bridegroom (CMA), 8. Parker (CMA), 9. Ruegner (Warsaw), 10. Treesh (Plymouth), 11. Trame (Wawasee), 12. Juday (CMA)
200 individual medley - 1. Brown (Wawasee), 2. Smith (Manchester), 3. Grossnickle (Rochester), 4. McCammon (Warsaw), 5. Grava (Valley), 6. Mock (Warsaw), 7. VanLaeken (Warsaw), 8. Metcalf (Wawasee), 9. Grossnickle (Rochester), 10. Thornburg (Wawasee), 11. Marshall (CMA), 12. Veatch (Huntington North)
50 freestyle - 1. Stoller (Bremen), 2. Lowrance (Warsaw), 3. Parks (Bremen), 4. Wise (Valley), 5. Amaral (Wawasee), 6. Quance (Warsaw), 7. Schmidt (Plymouth), 8. Crowl (Warsaw), 9. Pemberton (Rochester), 10. Christiansen (Manchester), 11. Valenzuela (CMA), 12. Holden (Bremen)
100 butterfly - 1. Paris (Valley), 2. Summerland (Manchester), 3. McCammon (Warsaw), 4. Leininger (Warsaw), 5. Stoller (Bremen), 6. Harting (Manchester), 7. Metcalf (Wawasee), 8. Thornburg (Wawasee), 9. Helfrich (Warsaw), 10. Grava (Valley), 11. Grossnickle (Rochester), 12. Oswald (Wawasee)
500 freestyle - 1. Schramm (Bremen), 2. Paris (Valley), 3. Bridegroom (CMA), 4. Wandland (Warsaw), 5. Beall (Bremen), 6. Mock (Warsaw), 7. Trame (Wawasee), 8. Smith (Warsaw), 9. Treesh (Plymouth), 10. Stamper (Rochester), 11. Yates (Plymouth), 12. Snell (Manchester)
200 freestyle relay - 1. Bremen, 2. Manchester, 3. Warsaw, 4. Valley, 5. Wawasee, 6. Rochester, 7. CMA, 8. Plymouth
100 breaststroke - 1. Brown (Wawasee), 2. Sincroft (Warsaw), 3. Wise (Valley), 4. VanLue (Wawasee), 5. Smith (Warsaw), 6. Lemberg (Wawasee), 7. Marshall (CMA), 8. Fox (Bremen), 9. Scheetz (Warsaw), 10. Lewis (Plymouth), 11. Juday (CMA), 12. Brinkhoff (Bremen)
400 freestyle relay - 1. Warsaw, 2. Bremen, 3. Manchester, 4. Wawasee, 5. Rochester, 6. CMA, 7. Plymouth, 8. Huntington North, 9. Valley
