By Matt Le Cren
For the Bugle
EVANSTON – Maine South is not known as a swimming school, but that will change if Annika Wagner has anything to say about it.
Wagner’s performance Saturday at the state finals at Evanston spoke volumes about how good she is.
The junior staked her claim to being one of the top swimmers in the state, if not the best, by winning the 200-yard individual medley in a state-record 2:00.13 and taking second in the 500 freestyle in 4:48.53.
Wagner is the fifth female swimmer in Maine South history to win a state championship but the first to do so since Courtney Madsen won the 50 and 100 free in 1984.
“To be the first one to do it in over 30 years is phenomenal and hopefully it generates some interest among the younger kids in the community,” Maine South coach Don Kura said. “(We hope) to get some more swimmers who are interesting in swimming year-round and making it their primary sport instead of something they kind of do when they have time.”
Wagner would love to see that. She burst onto the prep scene as a freshman when she took fourth in the 200 I.M. and 500, the won two more medals last year by finishing second in the I.M. and fifth in the 100 free.
Yet that only moved the needle a little in terms of getting the school’s attention to turn to swimming.
“Maybe a little,” Wagner said. “Freshman year our team was really small.It’s gotten a little bit better over the years but there’s still not that much interest. Our school is really focused on football.”
But the football team, Wagner noted, had been eliminated the week before, leaving Wagner as the last fall sport athlete competing for the Hawks.
She finished the season with a bang, swimming arguably the toughest combination of individual events by actually going faster in the finals than she did in Friday’s prelims.
The IM championship was not a surprise and neither was the record, at least to Wagner. She clocked 2:00.94 in the prelims, which was nearly a second faster than Rosary senior Sydney VanOvermeiren for the fastest time of the day.
The state record of 2:00.27, set in 2016 by Urbana U-High’s Ema Rajic, fell on Saturday as Wagner bested VanOvermeiren by 1.36 seconds.
“It’s pretty cool,” Wagner said. “I’ve gone 1:58 in the club season, so that was my goal, was to go under 2 minutes. Sadly, it didn’t happen but it’s OK.”
It was more than OK to Kura, who was impressed by not stunned by Wagner’s record win.
“She’s been training IM for a really long time,” Kura said. “Last March she was even faster than she was today.
“This format here is tight and condensed. It’s not optimal for warming up, necessarily, but I knew she had the potential for a state-record swim in her and she was able to go out and get it today.
“It’s really a testament to her and her kind of will to go ahead and be better than she was yesterday.”
Incredibly, Wagner did the same thing in the 500, where she shattered her personal-best time by five seconds. She timed 4:50.54 in the prelims to finish second behind Neuqua Valley sophomore Rachel Stege, who broke a decade-old state record by timing 4:46.14.
In the finals, Stege took the early lead with a blistering pace, but Wagner at one point drew even with her and Stege only pulled away in the final 20 yards, winning in 4:47.20. Wagner hit the wall in 4:48.53
“She brought it today, that’s for sure,” Kura said. “(We said) let’s change up the race strategy and get after it earlier, see if we can give (Stege) a run.
“Maybe she has an off day and you put yourself in position to be able to win that one as well. (Wagner) did that but Rachel Stege was just a little bit better than her today.”
The winner of the IM is generally regarded as the best swimmer in the state because it requires mastery of all four strokes. Combined with the 500, it is a grueling double, one which is not Wagner’s preference.
“I really want to swim the 200 IM and 200 free,” Wagner said. “Those are my two better events, but they are (run) back-to-back, so you can’t really do that.
“So freshman year I went up to the 500 and sophomore year I went down to the 100 free. I wasn’t sure about the 100 free so then I came back to the 500 free. I think it was worth it because (today) was my best time by a lot.”
In other results, Maine South’s 400 free relay team of senior Amna Sorbun, Wagner, junior Natalie Waida and senior Margaret Edsey finished 22nd in Friday’s prelims in 3:36.22. Junior divers Riley Bond and Bronwyn Bond placed 29th and 30th with 172.90 points and 172.65 points, respectively.