Recent Lyons Township High School graduate Maeve Collins missed her entire freshman girls swimming season because of a back injury. When the state meet arrived, Collins still realized all of the excitement, craziness and deafening noise. Collins joined her non-participating teammates in the stands to cheer. For the first time, they even dressed in unison by wearing yellow bodysuits.
“We looked like yellow mannequins, kind of. It was really funny,” Collins said. “I had a fun time and it was really fun to watch the girls I grew up swimming with and kind of their opportunity to shine.”
Collins is among the four recent LTHS graduates and multiple all-staters who will swim NCAA Division I collegiately at the University of California at Santa Barbara.
There’s also Lindsay Forebaugh at Dartmouth (Hanover, N.H.), Anna Pansing at Brown (Providence, R.I.) and Kylie Thompson at Bowling Green (Ohio). Forebaugh and Thompson swam at four state meets along with Dylan Jorgensen, who is not competing collegiately.
“I really do it for them,” Forebaugh said during the season. “Especially in high school season, it is not about you. It is about the team and that is really what keeps you going.”
All four college-bound swimmers mentioned the hope of continuing the camaraderie and enthusiasm they enjoyed with the Lions under new head coach Brendan Weibel this past season and retired longtime head coach Scott Walker their first three.
The seniors tried to leave that tone this past season. They were the only five swimmers among the 14 Lions at state with previous experience.
“In general, the LT swim program is, was an amazing to be a part of,” Pansing said. “It’s one of the main reasons I’d say I continued swimming and wanted to pursue something at a higher level. The team culture is just awesome.”
Collins finished with 10 all-state medals for second through seventh place over three state meets. She again broke her 100-yard butterfly school record (54.74) at last season’s state prelims en route to finishing fourth (55.22).
Including B all-state medals for ninth through 16th, Thompson finished with seven, Forebaugh and Pansing six and Jorgensen four.
This season, the 200 medley relay with Collins and Jorgensen finished a program-best second at state. Thompson fondly remembered the 200 medley relay as the first race at her first state meet in 2022 with Forebaugh, Jorgensen and 2025 graduate Audrey Cavaliere, now swimming at Illinois.
“That was just a great start of my high school career,” Thompson said. “I think (for state) it just helped the team the way we were all able to have people racing, people up there cheering. It was just a fun environment and close-knit community.”
Collins liked UCSB academics and is leaning toward accounting or pre-med. The swim program also was enticing but she wanted to remain open-minded until her visit.
“When I visited, I instantly knew. I bought a sweatshirt right away,” Collins said. “The girls there were so incredible. They reminded me of me and my friends. It’s a really great sense of community. The boys and girls (teams) get along so well.”
The assistant coach for both UCSB swim teams is former LTHS boys assistant Matt Harder, a 2018 Riverside Brookfield graduate who grew up in LaGrange Park.
“(Head coach Jaclyn Rosen is) just an amazing person. She made me feel really comfortable throughout the process,” Collins said. “I’m excited to go out there, test the waters a little bit, meet people, explore a different part of the country.”
At Dartmouth, Forebaugh will major in government and minor in public policy with hopes of becoming a lawyer.
“The entire recruiting process I really wanted a school I was loving for its academics if not more than athletics. In Dartmouth, I felt like they were the most like me and those were the people I wanted to surrounded myself with,” Forebaugh said. “I also loved (head coach Milana Socha). She was amazing, so organized. I really trusted her throughout the whole recruiting process.”
Thompson enters Bowling Green as a business major. She likes her new teammates and the program’s commitment to team bonding and community involvement. Both of her parents swam in college.
“I loved the school. All of the school spirit, school pride as well,” Thompson said. “The coaches did a nice job recruiting me, seeing me as a person on top of a swimmer. Ultimately, the community drove me to Bowling Green and how they choose to represent it.”
Pansing is considering a career in pediatric dentistry after meeting one during a health care class at LTHS.
“I loved the national reputation that (Brown) had and the awesome academics,” Pansing said. “The campus was amazing. It was just an awesome vibe. All of the girls were so nice. The team culture really stuck out to me.”
Starting on the junior varsity I team, Pansing initially had no college swimming plans until a breakthrough junior year, her first on varsity.
“I didn’t have the times freshman and sophomore year to go to the schools I wanted,” Pansing said. “Once I realized I wanted to swim in college, a huge part of me wanted to use swimming to help get into a really strong academic school.”
