Stevenson’s depth tops Mundelein’s stars

Mundelein’s boys swimming team is heavy at the top, but Stevenson proved that more is usually better by cruising to an easy 120-66 dual meet win over the Mustangs Thursday night.

“We swam pretty well, but Stevenson is tough,” assistant coach Russell Gates said. “They’re a very, very deep team, and they’re good all around. So it was a tough one.”

Mundelein may have had the star of the meet in senior Connor Black, but it hardly mattered in the final tally. Black, who dominated both the 50- and 500-yard freestyles and looked like a torrid swamp creature in a pool full of tadpoles, couldn’t help his team overcome deficiencies in the other strokes.

Stevenson’s Allen Feng exemplified the Patriots versatility, placing first in the 200 freestyle and 100 breaststroke while finishing second in the 200 individual medley. Weilly Tong (100 freestyle), Dimitriy Pelutis (200 IM) and Nick Koto (100 butterfly) also took first place in their respective races.

When the swimmers left the pool and gave way to the divers, the results stayed the same. Stevenson senior James Lichtenstein scorched the field with an impressive score of 247.

Luckily for the Mustangs, Black was able to take to the water once more in the 400 free relay to conclude the meet. He gave Mundelein a huge lead after his opening leg, and the Mustangs went on to crush the field with a season-best time of 3:22.99.

“I thought it was a really good meet,” said Ayrton Kasemets, who anchors Mundelein’s 400 free relay. “A lot of people had personal bests, and that’s hard at this point in the season because we’re all lifting and pretty tired.”