Caden Brooks first Princeton swimmer to medal at state

Caden Brooks made a big splash in his first trip to the IHSA State Swim Meet.

The Princeton senior made school history when he became the first swimmer from PHS to medal at state, placing eighth in the 100 backstroke with a time of 49.85 at the FMC Natatorium Saturday in Westmont. He bettered his time from Friday’s preliminaries by about a second.

Brooks said it’s all been a surreal experience.

“It’s really cool. Freshman year when we were able to make it possible for me to represent PHS during the swim postseason series I never imagined I would be able to accomplish something like this. I was just hoping to swim against good competition at sectionals, I never would’ve expected that the town of Princeton would be getting announced at the state finals,” said Brooks, who swam for the Illinois Valley YMCA Dolphins.

“The experience was absolutely awesome, reading comments from people I didn’t even know knew I existed wishing me luck and telling me congrats was awesome. The encouragement from so many people in the community really did help keep me confident as I advanced through every level. I quit everything for swim so I don’t get in the paper or athlete of the week nominations, so seeing so many people recognizing my accomplishments and newspapers wanting to write about me was really just so awesome, I can’t think of a better way to finish my high school career.”

The experience was absolutely awesome, reading comments from people I didn’t even know existed wishing me luck and telling me congrats was awesome.”

—  Caden Brooks

Brooks placed seventh in the 100-yard backstroke in 50.62 seconds in Friday’s preliminaries to claim a spot in Saturday’s consolation finals. He was six-tenths of a second shy of a spot in the championship finals in which only top six times advanced.

Brooks also competed in the 500 freestyle prelims, finishing 18th in 4:39.17, and did not advance.