ST. CHARLES – Senior North Star swimmer Alek Filipovic will remember Saturday’s DuKane Conference meet at St. Charles North, his last competition at his home pool.
Not only did Filipovic make major contributions to the North Stars winning the meet, but he also broke both pool and conference time records.
North took seven first places medals to win the meet with 263 points. St. Charles East took second place honors earning 200 points and Lake Park came in third with a score of 166. Filipovic set a DuKane Conference record of 45.11 seconds in winning the 100 freestyle. In addition, the senior also broke both a conference and a pool record with his winning time of 45.59 seconds in the 100 backstroke. He also swam a leg in the two relays the North Stars won — the 200 medley (1:35.44) and the 200 freestyle (1:27.20).
The senior also believes the meet’s results are a good first step in the North Stars’ quest to capture a third straight state swimming title. North won in 2019 and 2020. No state meet was held in 2021.
“Yes, I broke a couple of records today, but it is only the beginning. I’m only going to get faster from here,” Filipovic said. “Today was a great beginning for the fast swimming that we will have to do in the future at the sectionals and state.”
Sophomore teammate William Deutmeyer won two events: the 200 freestyle (1:46.94) and the 500 freestyle (4:58.62).
North Star Robby Kemp took first place in the 200 IM (2:02.8).
St. Charles North coach Rob Rooney is also looking at the North Stars’ next steps.
“I thought those were all great swims by those guys,” Rooney said. “But, I think that we are working in a direction, we have a lot of work to do in the next few weeks to get ready for sectionals and we will see what happens.”
St. Charles East, which finished second place in five events, took first place in the last race of the meet, the 400 freestyle relay. Sophomores Christian LoFaso, Nick Redden, Connor Lougheed and freshman Clancy Windle won the contest with a time of 3:32.09.
“We are a young team, so it was great to win that race,” said East coach Adam Musial.
Lake Park swimmers won three competitions. Senior Phillip Stempien took top honors in the 100 butterfly (51.70) and the 100 breaststroke (56.71).
Lancer Jacob Drozd (20.71) edged out Glenbard North co-op’s Eddie Vercruysse (21.83) to win the 50 freestyle. Vercruysse was the top finisher for fifth place Glenbard (87 points).
Reese Boecker, of the fourth-place Wheaton co-op team (136 points), finished third in the 500 freestyle. The sophomore completed the grueling 20-lap race in 5:03.02.
North Star AJ Zoretic setting a new junior varsity record of 22.8 seconds in the 50 freestyle was the highlight of the JV conference meet, which was also won by North.