Evanston boys swimming coach Kevin Auger said he was not surprised to see his swimmers tired at the Trevian Relays after what the coach called the team’s “hardest training week.”
While many teams did their most difficult training over the holiday break, Auger eased off a bit on the Wildkits during that period — two-a-days on odd days, a single practice on even days — but made up for lost time in the week after the break.
That junior Aidan Dillon swam a career-best time of 4 minutes, 55.50 seconds in the 500-yard freestyle at Trevian Relays on Saturday is a testament to Dillon’s appreciation for hard work, according to Auger.
“He came off the (holiday) break a little bit sluggish and didn’t have his best performance (at the previous week’s Evanston Invite),” Auger said. “So, to come back this week and have his best performance. … He’s the kind of kid who likes to work hard.”
Dillon, who finished 10th, said the key to beating his previous best time of 4:56.61 was not so much a new race strategy, but a stronger commitment to his usual strategy: setting a solid, but-not-too-fast early pace and then maintaining it throughout the race.
“I’ve always thought about (the strategy) as controlling the first 100 (yards), then working the last 400 and trying to hold what I built, as opposed to just trying to go out at a faster pace in the first half,” said Dillon, who lives in Evanston.
He added: “I think that’s always how I’ve swam it, but once in awhile, I get too jittery and forget about swimming it that way. I just tried to re-think it and go back to how I feel comfortable swimming it.”
Dillon finished third in Heat 3 (of 4) and said he continues to work on the “racing” element of swimming.
While a good start, proper technique and the right pace are all important components of a race, sometimes the latter stages of an event simply come down to beating the other guys in the pool. It’s an area in which Dillon said he can improve.
“I’ve never been much of a racer and racing next to people and competing, and that’s such an important thing,” Dillon said. “The last 200 yards of that race, it’s really about pushing it, going head-to-head with the guys next to you. Finishing the race strong is what I have to work on.”
While Dillon talks about racing up to the competition, Auger said Dillon also must avoid racing down to his opponents.
An impressive recent drop in times means Dillon is now faster than many swimmers who previously were faster than him. Auger said Dillon must adjust to this new reality.
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“(Dillon) is going times that are certainly faster than he had done in the past and relative to the kids he normally races,” Auger said. “A lot of times, he swims with them for the first little bit forgetting, ‘I should be faster than them.’ He needs to understand: ‘They are not really as fast as I am anymore. They used to beat me, but now I’m faster.'”
Dillon’s strong day at the Trevian Relays extended to the actual relays, when he teamed up with seniors Evan Ziolkowski and Sean McGuire and sophomore Rafael de Gouvea to finish sixth in the 400 free (3:21.04).
A year ago, Ziolkowski, Dillon, de Gouvea, and then-senior Adrian Lafont-Mueller qualified for state in that event and finished 26th overall.
Dillon said the goal this year is to not only get that relay back to state, but to reach finals (top 12).
Evanston-resident Ziolkowski said: “We’ve done it once and know we can do it again. And it’s a year later, so we’re bigger, stronger and faster.”
However, Auger pointed out that Lafont-Mueller is not easily replaced, and that each swimmer must continue to improve in order to account for his absence.
“We lost our hammer from last year, Adrian,” Auger said. “We need everybody to fill in that gap. Adrian was like 3 seconds faster than the other guys in that squad. If everybody (from last year) can drop a second, and we can find somebody to (swim a solid fourth time) we’ll be good. But it’s going to be more of a team effort than maybe just about one guy.”
Results
Evanston finished 11th at the loaded 16-team Trevian Relays. Additional highlights for the Wildkits included Ziolkowski finishing 10th in the 200 free (1:49.13) and 15th in the 50 free (22.93), Dillon coming in 11th in the 200 free (1:49.21), McGuire finishing 13th in the 100 butterfly (55.35) and the team of junior Charlie Davis, Ziolkowski, senior Danny Managlia and senior Thomas Fies coming in 11th in the 200 free relay (1:32.88).
Dan Shalin is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
Twitter @Pioneer_Press