Montclaire Defeats Sunset Hills in Shortened Final Meet 329-102

EDWARDSVILLE – In the final Southwestern Illinois Swimming Association dual meet of the season, Montclaire Swim Club of Edwardsville won over Sunset Hills Country Club 329-102 Tuesday evening in a meet that was shortened when lightning was seen in the area as the backstroke races were beginning.

The remnants of tropical storm Barry had been dissipating over the entire St. Louis area by Tuesday evening, but some lingering showers still fell during the meet. The start of the meet was delayed by approximately 20 minutes, due to a broken starting block, which forced meet organizers to redo lane assignments for the swimmers.

It was still a very successful meet for the Marlins, who picked up many wins during the meet.

“This meet, for us, we know Sunset Hills, and I know Sunset Hills coaches really well,” said Montclaire head coach Porter LeVasseur. “It’s a fun little meet we have, dual meet we have at the end of the season. It’s a great way to end up our season, it’s a great way to be able to throw in people into events we want to make sure they can do right before SWISA, so we can get that lineup all made sure, everything. So far, it’s going really good. We’ve seen some swims like, it was, like, OK, they’re better at freestyle, so we can keep them at freestyle. We’ve had some people who had pop-out surprise performances. So we think we might change up their events over for SWISA. So, it’s really exciting to have this meet right here. This right here is the final, like, OK, this is where we’re swimming at, and this is what our lineup’s going to look like.”

LeVasseur didn’t think the delay in starting the meet affected his swimmers, except in the pre-meet warm-ups.

“I don’t think it affected anybody,” LeVasseur said. “I think a little bit, it might have slowed down everybody’s warm-ups, so it was a little slower getting into that first event. But I think other than that, it happens sometimes at these meets, so everyone just takes it in stride, and we came together to take the little delay, so everybody gets the chance to swim, and everybody gets the chance to have a fun little dual meet at the end of the season.”

As usual, LeVassuer singled out many of his swimmers as standouts during the meet.

“Standing out, definitely Logan Oertle, Jake Grandone, Evan Grinter, Hunter Schlueter, especially, He wanted to step up tonight, and wanted to swim the 200 freestyle, so I was excited about that earlier. Max Lewis, one of our eight-and-unders, is doing a great job, I thought Madison Popelar is doing really great today, we had Georgia Cope, she did her first 100 (individual medley) today, and she excelled at it, so I was really excited about that. We’ve got Liam (Csazar) over here again, swimming with his broken arm, is doing a great job, and everyone overall is just having a great meet.”

Stingrays coach Drew May, despite not having good numbers, was pleased with how his swimmers were performing at the halfway point of the meet.

“Alright,” May said. “We didn’t come in expecting to win with our numbers, but we have had some good swims so far. And this is a meter pool; our kids aren’t quite used to that, you can tell that. But they’re having fun, so we’re all having fun and having a good time.”

May thought that the Sunset Hills team had a very solid relay team in the eight-and-under that performed well, and his older swimmers did well also.

“We have a pretty solid eight-and-under relay team, and they’ve been doing well,” May said, “and then, we have an older group that has done really well, also.”

May thought that his team swam well all season, but the lack of younger swimmers did have an impact on the season.

“They’ve done well,” May said. “Maybe there had been more turnout with the little kids, we’d actually have a larger team this year. It’s nice to see that.”

The Marlins swept the opening 200-meter freestyle races, with Grinter, Maddie Milburn, LeVasseur and Savannah Grinter all coming out on top, while in the 100-meter freestyle races, Montclaire got wins from Matthew Lueking, Chase Milburn, Grace Oertle, Evan Grinter, Ava Whittaker, Canon Adams, and Josie Bushell, while Sunset Hills got a single win from Greta Deist. The Marlins won most of the medley relay races, getting the wins in the girls’ nine-and-10-year-old, 13-14-year-old, 11-12-year-old and 15-18-year-old races, while the boys took the nine-and-10, 13-14, 11-12 and 15-18-year-old races. The Stingrays eight-and-under girls team got the win in the 100-meter event.

In the freestyle sprints, Montclaire got wins from Boden Rives, Nathan Woodbury, Ava McIntyre, Nolan Csazar, Karissa Osborn, Parker LeVasseur, Schlueter, Cohen Osborn, Chloe Harrison, Porter LeVasseur, Bushell and Caiden Calvin while the Stingrays got wins from Hildi Deist and Emma Nativi. In the individual medley races, the Montclaire winners were Karissa Osborn, Elijah Ball, Emily Moody, Whittaker and Autumn Grinter, while the Sunset Hills winners were Zach Cohn, Evan Rolves and Andrew Billhartz.

Over in the breaststroke events, Montclaire got wins from Lueking, Eliana Moody, Chase Milburn, Karis Chen, Cohen Osborn, Maddie Milburn, McLain Oertle and Bushell, while the Sunset Hills winners were Andrew Nativi and Nora Walton, Only two backstroke races were completed, with the Marlins’ Calvin and Evan Osborn coming out on top, and were had just started a race when the lightning was detected, sending everyone out of the pool. The rest of the meet was call shortly after, with the results standing.

Dan Brannan also contributed to this story.

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Dan Brannan also contributed to this story

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