Peyton Heagy returns to lead young L-P co-op swim team

The La Salle-Peru co-op girls swimming team is young this season, with six freshmen and six sophomores among the 17 swimmers on the roster.

But the Cavaliers will have strong leadership from their three seniors: Peyton Heagy from L-P, Paige Marks from Earlville and Emma White from Ottawa.

“Our three seniors have put in a lot of work this summer,” L-P coach Rob McNally said. “I’m looking forward to seeing what they can do in the pool.”

Heagy enters her senior season with an impressive résumé that includes back-to-back 50-meter freestyle sectional titles and a 100 freestyle sectional championship as a sophomore followed by a second-place finish by a narrow margin last fall.

“Peyton has put in the work during the offseason,” McNally said. “She swims with the local age group team, so she’s not just a high school season-type swimmer. I know she really has a lot of desire this year. I expect excellent times from her right from the beginning of the season because she’s physically and mentally prepared herself.”

McNally said he expects Heagy to compete in the 50 and 100 freestyles again this season at the sectional but said she’s capable of performing well in other events as well.

“She’s won the 50 the last two years at the sectional, won the 100 as a sophomore and lost by less than a tenth of a second last year,” McNally said. “That loss motivated her to become stronger. It’s an area we both identified where she needed to improve, and she has significantly. She’ll probably swim those events at sectional, but she’s a versatile swimmer, and she’s willing to swim pretty much anything I ask her to because she knows it will benefit the team. She’s always been a team player.”

McNally said Clara Guglielmetti from L-P has shown a lot of promise, and he’s interested to see what freshmen Lily Mustered (Ottawa) and Addison Nance (L-P) can do in the pool.

“With the incoming freshmen, I know there’s a lot of talent there,” McNally said. “I’ve seen it at practice, but we have not yet competed to be able to form a solid opinion about that.”

McNally said he expects to be able to put together competitive 200 medley and 200 freestyle relays with Heagy, Marks, Mustered and Nance.

“I’m very excited,” McNally said about the relays. “We may not have a state relay, but we may have team record-breaking relays. From a goal standpoint, we’ll work to break the team record first, then we can move on to trying to get a state time, but we don’t have to worry about that until the sectional.”