Maroons win rivalry meet, future looks bright for Central and Centennial

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CHAMPAIGN — In case you were wondering, yes, Champaign Central is still the girls’ swimming and diving team to beat in town, but the gap is getting smaller. The Maroons bested crosstown rival Centennial Tuesday at Unit 4 Pool 105-81, a handful of placement points closer than last year’s head-to-head result.

“I see my girls rise to the occasion when we have really good competition, and Centennial brought it,” Central coach Katie VanHootegem-Dunn said. “It really makes my girls level up. It’s a lot more fun when it’s competitive.”

The Maroons have just used that target on their backs as motivation, and they’ve enjoyed every bit of it.

“I love it,” Central senior Babette Bradley said. “I love hearing other teams say ‘We’re going to try to beat them’ and stuff like that. You can see that’s their goal.

“It feels good that we built that up the past couple years. … It’s a lot more fun because we’re able to race more, and there’s a lot more energy from both sides. When you’re swimming, you can just hear screaming. It’s awesome.”

Bradley was part of the Maroons’ winning 200-yard medley relay and 400 freestyle relay. She also won the 500 freestyle by nearly 30 seconds, “shocking” herself by swimming a time of 5 minutes, 20.80 seconds to lower her season-best mark by four seconds even though her goggles fell off as soon as she dove into the water.

Joining Bradley in the medley relay were Olivia Dempsey, Katie Hettinger and Macy Cappa (1:56.94), and with Bradley on the 400 relay were Emily Loy, Emory Wilson and Stella Asse (3:58.26). The Maroons also won the 200 freestyle relay with Dempsey, Cappa, Natalie Loy and Asse (1:46.16) to sweep the relays. Other individual event winners for Central included Dempsey in the 100 butterfly (1:05.98), Maggie Caithamer in the 100 breaststroke (1:21.15) and Erin Armstrong in 1-meter diving with a personal-best score of 213.90.

“They work really hard, and to be able to see the joy they have to know that their hard work pays off is everything,” VanHootegem-Dunn said. “We’re in the middle of our season, so I’m training them pretty hard right now. The fact that they’re still able to show up, give that effort and swim fast is amazing. Swimming is a big mental game. If you can be there mentally and not let your body tell you what’s going on, you can push through anything, and we saw that (Tuesday). They had the heart and the fire, and they wanted to show everybody else what they had.”

Tuesday’s meet was closer than recent years, and the Chargers only look to be getting better. Leading that charge is freshman Sofia Marquez, who won the 200 individual medley (2:19.25) and 100 freestyle (57.14), and Centennial coach Courtney Louret said is “going to do big things” over the next few years.

“The future of Centennial is going to be insane,” Marquez said. “We have so many eighth-graders who are going to come up, and we’ll have amazing relays. All the underclassmen now have already improved so much in such a short amount of time. Where we’ll be in the next few years, I can’t even picture it. It will be amazing.”

Brynley Wilber was also a two-time winner for Centennial, taking the 50 freestyle (25.74) and 100 backstroke (1:05.85). Rounding out the Chargers’ first-place finishes was Meagan Tsai, who won the 200 freestyle (2:06.60).

While Centennial’s future looks bright, Tuesday was also an opportunity for the Chargers to honor their seniors, whom Marquez said have made the team more of a family.

“It’s emotional,” Louret said. “Some of these girls, I’ve known for the last four years, and you develop a relationship with each one of them. You just have a special bond with the seniors. The team is very close. They were all crying after the senior celebration.”

Not to be outdone over the next few years, the Maroons also have plenty of talented underclassmen. They’ll lose 10 seniors after this season, but 10 freshmen are getting their feet wet now so they can take over the program.

“We have a lot of sister combos who are seniors and freshmen, so the traditions, camaraderie, team spirit and culture keeps transcending and makes us stronger each year,” VanHootegem-Dunn said. “It’s been cool to see our upperclassmen mentor these girls on what it means to be a Central Maroon.”