BBCHS retains All-City title as Bishop McNamara rejoins the pool

It had been 14 years since the Bradley-Bourbonnais, Kankakee and Bishop McNamara girls swim and dive teams all took the pool together.

But at Tuesday’s All-City meet, the Kays and host Boilermakers welcomed the Fightin’ Irish back to the water, filling the hole that had been left open since Bishop McNamara cut its swim program prior to the 2012 season.

Bradley-Bourbonnais maintained its grip on the All-City title with first-place finishes in 11 of 12 events, with Kankakee winning the other. It was the Boilermakers’ third meet of the year while Kankakee and Bishop McNamara were competing for the first time this season.

The upstart Irish have three swimmers for year one in juniors Farrah Schurman and Payton Fritz and freshman Bailey Stewart.

Schurman originally quit swimming around age 10, but with the news that Bishop McNamara would be adding a team, decided it was time to return to the sport. Her fourth-place finish in the 100-yard freestyle was the highest finish for the Irish on the day.

She said it has been fun to be part of a new team.

“I’m really excited for it,” she said. “Some of us haven’t swam at all, and some of us are just getting back into it, and I just think it’s really fun to do.”

Head coach Carley Meier coached club swimming, the middle school team and served as a high school assistant coach in her native Greenfield, Indiana. She said it was nice to get her first taste of All-City in her first year as a varsity head coach, and thought Tuesday was good step toward what she hopes will be a bright future for the program

“It was cool to be at the All-City, be included in it, and just have a good environment here,” she said. “They were nervous at first, but as they got going I think they shook off those nerves and performed really well, for their first meet in a long, long time.”

For the host Boilermakers, Bria McCrary and Madeline Folk each took first in a pair of individual events, with McCrary winning the 200-yard freestyle and 100-yard breaststroke while Folk won the 100-yard backstroke and 100-yard butterfly.

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Girls Swim & Dive: Bradley-Bourbonnais hosts All-City Bradley-Bourbonnais' Bria McCrary competes in the 200-yard freestyle race during the Boilermakers' victory over Kankakee and Bishop McNamara in the All-City swim meet on Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2025. (Tiffany Blanchette/Tiffany Blanchette)

Freshman Ally Swafford won the 50-yard freestyle, Abby Bonilla took the 100-yard freestyle and Isabelle Trudeau won the 500-yard freestyle.

Ashley Smith also picked up a win as the lone participant in the one meter dive while Bonilla, Trudeau, Folk and Swafford won the 200-yard medley relay and 200-yard freestyle relay. McCrary, Brooke Schwob, Anneliese Schneider and Mia Ecker won the 400-yard freestyle relay.

After having just two teams competing for so long, Bradley-Bourbonnais head coach Ashley Porter said that the opportunity to get all three schools back in the water together was one she did not want to pass up.

“We’ve been looking forward to this,” she said. “When we found out Mac had a team, I reached out right away like ‘We have a meet with Kankakee, so let’s do this.’ …We were happy to host it and have it be an all-community event.”

Kankakee’s Ashlynn Brosseau took the Kays’ lone first place in the 200-yard individual medley, edging out Schwob by nearly four seconds. She also finished second in the 500-yard freestyle while Aubrey Wosz took fourth in the 200-yards freestyle, as Arden Chandler did the same in the 200-IM and Kenzee Baker in the 50-yard freestyle.

Kankakee head coach Mackenzie Ganger was swimming for the Kays in 2011, the last time a full All-City meet was held prior to Tuesday.

And with Kankakee’s co-op program pulling in swimmers from Clifton Central, Herscher, Manteno, Milford and Reed-Custer, Ganger said that All-City is a wonderful opportunity to showcase the sport’s impact on the entire area.

“I think I’ve just been blessed to see another opportunity like this come about, and it makes me happy that swimming is having this big resurgence in this area,” she said. “I’m hoping that Bishop McNamara’s just brings more of that camaraderie to the area. ...It really is the friendliest rivalry that I think sports in this area has.”