Neuqua Valley boys swimming is on the road for their last DVC meet of the regular season, taking on Naperville North. The Wildcats are coming off a conference win over DeKalb last week, while the Huskies are coming off a tri-meet win over Benet and Metea Valley and a head-to-head victory over Waubonsie Valley. A win for either team will help get a leg up on the upcoming conference tournament. This highlight is sponsored by BMO.
The Huskies start the meet strong
Let’s dive right into action with the 200-yard medley relay. Four Wildcat teams are taking on three Huskie teams. The race would come down to the A-teams for both Neuqua in lane four and North in lane five. In a neck-and-neck battle to the finish, it is the Huskies who strike first as the team of Hudson Labinsky, Joshua Leu, Allen Xu, and Max Fedorovskiy claim victory over Neuqua by just .05 seconds.
Next up is the first individual race of the night, with the 200-yard freestyle. The race features four individual Wildcats taking on three individual Huskie swimmers. This time, the Wildcats strike big with Jack Fastabend in lane six, cruising to a nearly two-second win over Huskie Kevin Chen. Chen narrowly beats out Neuqua’s Aly Hassanien in third and Patrick Xu in fourth.
The third race is our third 200-yard event in the individual medley. The Wildcats go back-to-back as freshman Blake Torpey holds off a hard-charging Fedorovskiy in the final 25 meters, finishing with a first-place time of 2:00.33. Neuqua’s Jack Langan takes third to give the Wildcats the early edge.
Onto our shortest race of the day in the 50-yard freestyle. The race is also the closest of the day, with Arun Kaura of Neuqua Valley and Hudson Labinsky of North charging hard at the front. In a down-to-the-wire finish, Labinsky edges Kaura by just .03 seconds to get North back in the race. All smiles from the Huskies as we go into the break.
The Cats catch fire after the break
After the break, swimmers jump back into action with the 100-yard butterfly. The photo finishes continue, this time between Neuqua teammates Jack Langan and Peter Carroll. The final result is a difference of .09 seconds between them. Langan gets to the wall first with a time of 53.41.
In the 100-yard freestyle, the Huskies pull closer with a win from Joshua Leu with a time of 49.09, just ahead of Wildcats Jackson Wagoner and Luke Oitker. Wagoner goes on to win the 100-yard backstroke later in the meet.
Let’s leapfrog ahead to our longest race of the day, the 500-yard freestyle! The race starts with Neuqua’s Arun Kaura, showing his ability to handle short and long distance swims, jumping out in front. Midway through, he is overtaken by teammate Jack Fastabend. It looks like Fastabend will take the win, but heading towards the final stretch, Kaura swims past him and doesn’t look back as the Wildcat wins with a time of 4:51.05. Neuqua takes a sweep of the top three with Philip Song in third.
Neuqua Valley picks up another DVC victory in the pool
Moving back to our shorter races with the 100-yard breaststroke. The Neuqua dominance in the second half continues with another sweep of the top three. This time, Braden Meurer swims his way to another individual win for Neuqua with a time of 1:01.06. He beats teammates Philip Song and Jayden Mui.
That helps guide Neuqua Valley to a 113-72 win over Naperville North to wrap up their DVC regular season. Next week, North travels to face Naperville Central on Tuesday, before both teams compete in the Metea invite next Saturday.
For more prep sports highlights, visit the Naperville Sports Weekly page!
