RB’s Aleksa turns 21, headed to state meet

Riverside Brookfield has been swimming with no home pool all season, but senior Marius Aleksa still hopes to put his team on the map this weekend during the IHSA State Meet at Evanston High School.

With the Bulldogs’ pool remaining under construction, Aleksa made himself feel at home at the Fenwick Sectional in Oak Park on Saturday with a state-qualifying time of 21.82 seconds in the 50-yard freestyle. Aleksa just missed qualifying in the 100-yard freestyle, scoring a time of 48.93, a mere .20 seconds off the state cut. Fenwick junior Ryan Bartecki won the event (48.87 seconds), nipping Aleksa at the wall.

“My 50 free was just awesome,” Aleksa said. “I was dreaming of going to 21 and I got it. In the 100, I breathed a little too much and I got touched out. [Bartecki and I] weren’t under state cuts but we were neck and neck. I thought I had him at the end, but he did great. I want to go Top 12 at state and get RB on the map.”

Although Aleksa is the Bulldogs’ only state qualifier, several RB swimmers enjoyed season-best personal times at Fenwick. Junior Terry Crowley finished fourth in the 100-yard butterfly (58.74), while sophomore Billy Fuener took sixth in the 100-yard breaststroke (1:07.44). Freshman Kyle Miller also garnered a sixth-place result, posting a time of 5:19.83 in the 500-yard freestyle.

Jack Dunigan, Tom Tischler, Issac Lauritsen, Jerry Brown swam well for the Bulldogs in several events.

The RB relay teams took home a pair of third-place finishes. The 200-yard medley relay (Alex Lazzara, Fuener, Crowley and Brown) finished in 1:47.25. The 400-yard freestyle (Aleksa, Crowley, Lauritsen, Lazzara) finished at 3:29.25. Aleksa, Lazzara, Brown and Tischler also teamed up to finish fourth in the 200-yard freestyle relay with a time of 1:33.05.

Along with solid sectional scores, RB coach Todd Fridrych believes his young team gained valuable experience at the sectional.

“Ninety percent of my team had not swam in this meet before,” he said. “Terry and Marius are the only two that have been here before, so for the rest of them, this is a big deal. We wanted to go season bests and we did. Anytime you can go into a meet and have that, it’s a good thing.”

Fenwick, which had state qualifiers in 10 of 11 events, won its eighth consecutive sectional with 313 points, followed by Oak Park (260), RB (199), St. Patrick (197) and Fenton (113).