Morris boys swimming team motors past Joliet Central in opener

MORRIS – Joliet Central won more of the battles but Morris won the war Tuesday, defeating the Steelmen, 99-64, in the boys swimming and diving opener for both teams.

Joliet won seven of the 12 events, but the superior Morris depth won out as the hosts scored at least four points in every race. The Steelmen did not enter diving or the 400 free, allowing Morris to pick up a free 20 points in those events.

It was not simply that Morris had more athletes, however. Sean Smith earned a pair of individual wins, finishing the 50 free in 27.74 and the 100 fly in 1:09.47. He also anchored a winning 400 free team that included Chris Collet, Bailey Rath and Soren Knudsen and had a time of 4:47.83. Smith, Rath, Collet and Jeremy Gregorec were second with a time of 2:06.04 in the 200 free relay.

“For my first meet, it was what I was expecting. Next meet, I wanna prove a little bit more,” Smith said. “Good to get the first one out of the way so that I know how to improve myself, fix things.”

Joliet captured the first two relays, getting winning times of 2:11.40 from Jason Miller, Ben Chambers, Erik Fosen and Jonathon Yanello in the 200 medley and 1:53.70 from Yanello, Navalon Battle, Fosen and Chambers in the 200 free. Individual winning times for the Steelmen were a 2:22.98 in the 200 free and a 1:18.95 in the 100 breast from Chambers, a 2:26.86 in the 200 IM and a 1:08.84 in the 100 back from Yanello, and a 1:08.60 in the 100 free from Kentrell Daniels.

“We have a young group this year,” Joliet coach Cameron Barnish said. “Solid swims – I was really impressed with our guys and how they came out. Jonathon’s looking great, and I’m hoping that we can do big things and build off of where we went today.”

The other Morris winners were Rath, whose 156.30 beat out teammate Gregorec’s 135.85 in diving, and Collet, whose 5:37.02 edged teammate Ethan Frobish’s 6:29.30 in the 400 free. Additional second-place efforts for Morris came from Luke Riley, Dallas Hastings, Gregorec and Knudsen in the 200 medley relay, Collet in the 200 IM, Gregorec in the 200 free, Josh Houston in the 100 free, Knudsen in the 100 back and Brett Simmons in the 100 breast.

“I loved the effort today. I loved the spirit,” Morris coach Andrew Porth said. “This is a very, very motivated group of guys. A lot of these kids had some pretty good goals going into this meet, going into our December season. I thought Sean swam great. Chris Collet, who’s a new swimmer to us, he had a great meet. A lot of kids beat out my expectations.”

Mason Dant was an individual double winner for the Morris junior varsity team, which made it a sweep by defeating the Steelmen, 65-27.