Saturday was an extremely busy day for some of Barrington's elite athletes as they participated in playoff action.
Coach Takes Dip at Barrington Sectional
It is always easy to spot the winning coach at a swimming sectional meet. He or she will be the coach all wet after the customary celebratory splash in the pool honoring the difficult task just achieved by the team.
Find out what's happening in Barringtonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
Things were no different on Feb. 19 at the Barrington Sectional. Barrington's coach John Valentine could easily be seen after the swimming and diving meet all wet, and all smiles, especially when it came to the remarkable level of success that the Bronco swimmers achieved against some of the areas best talent. The Broncos not only won the sectional home meet with 254 team points but will send a participant to nine of the 12 state swimming and diving events at Winnetka week for the IHSA state meet.
“Today was the payoff from all the hard-work that the team started back on Nov 1,” a soaking wet Valentine said. “We had some suprisingly good swims todays.”
Find out what's happening in Barringtonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
The Broncos will be sending all three of their relays teams after they finished first in both the 200-yd. medley relay with 1:37.50 (sophomores Jack Strauss, Kyle Ujiiye, freshman Connor Kobida and senior Dan Comyn), 200-yd. freestyle in 1:27.39 (senior Matt Lee, Strauss, Ujiiye and Comyn) and would have made it a clean sweep but finished second in the 400-yd. freestyle relays at 3:14.01 (Lee, senior Sam Howes, senior Alex Anderson and Strauss), losing to Stevenson. Stevenson, last year's sectional champions, would finish second at the meet with 225 team points.
Other first place finishers came from Lee (50-yd. freestyle, 21.55), Strauss (100-yd. freestyle, 47.51) and the first/second finish by Barrington swimmers Kobida (59.53) and senior Greg Alexander (1:00.09) in the 100-yd. Breaststroke.
Other notable finishes: fifth place by junior Leo Hayden (200-yd. freestyle, 1:45.80), sixth place by Comyn (50-yd. freestyle, 22.07), a second and fourth place finish in the 100-yd. butterfly by Hayden (52.04) and Ujiiye (52.78), and finally junior Nolan Presmyk in the diving portion with a score of 376.10.
Gymnast Comes up Short at Preliminaries For State
After the Stevenson Sectional had seen all of the Fillies' gymnasts needing to hope for at-large bids in order to make it to the state meet at Palatine High School, senior Lexi Marsella was the lone Barrington member to receive the call. Marsella's 9.475 on the floor exercise at the Feb. 7 sectional was not good enough to make the top six that automatically qualify for the state meet but became eligible when the IHSA established the qualifiers prior to the state meet.
Unfortunately, things didn't go as planned when Marsella scored a 9.000 on the floor exercise that tied her for 31st during Friday's preliminaries. The score is far less than Marsella has been capable of in the past. She helped tie for second best ever at Barrington High School back on Jan. 11 home meet with 9.8. Marsella's failing to advance past the Friday preliminaries in an unfortunate end to the Fillies gymnastics season.
Wrestling at State Meet
A hot start by Barrington's senior Aaron Castagna (285) propelled him through the IHSA 3A individual state meet as he wrestles his way to a fifth place finish at the University of Illinois at Champaign/Urbana.
Castagna (41-6) began Friday's preliminaries by pinning his first two opening round opponents, senior Jovan Lee from Oswego (fall at 1:08 in the second period) and junior Cory Chojnowski of Tinley Park (pinned early in the second period .48).
Castagna's third match would be against undefeated and the number one ranked wrestler in the state currently in the heavyweight division Hinsdale senior Jack Allen (44-0). Allen would wrestle to a 9-2 decision over Castagna leaving the Bronco senior to wrestle back for a chance at third place.
Unfortunately, Castagna lost his subsequent match placing him in the fifth place match which he would win on a 2-1 decision over senior Sean Sullivan giving him the fifth best finish in the state's toughest meet.
Barrington's other wrestler to attend the state meet was junior Ryan Wilt (189) who after being victorious in his first match 10-6 over sophomore Ben Threloff, would lose his next match to Brendan Brooks 6-0 and was eliminated in the tournament.
Barrington's wrestling isn't over yet as the IHSA team dual finals begins on Feb. 22 with the Dundee Crown Sectional. Barrington will be wrestling against Niles with the meet starting at 6 p.m.
