Niles West Sports Roundup: Girls Swimming Looks to Topple Record Books

GIRLS SWIMMING: Every day at practice, Coach Jason Macejak sees a board with the top swim times in Niles West history. And by the end of the year Macejak expects a lot of them to change.

Led by sophomore Edan Scott and freshman Emma Helgeson, Niles West’s young swimmers are looking to redefine a program that graduated a majority of its varsity swimmers last season.

“I expect a lot of those to be broken. I expect a lot of those individual [frosh/soph] records to be broken by Edan or Emma, those two are going to be battling each other all year long,” Macejak said. “We have three relays and I think all three of those frosh/soph relays are going to be absolutely annihilated by the end of the season.”

Niles West returns only 25 percent of last year’s varsity team. Zoe Antonow, Emme Deamont, Emina Djelovic, Mary Giffen and Scott make up the returning varsity swimmers.

So Macejak is counting on four incoming freshmen -- Helgeson, Abby Hegberg, Yara Barbosa and Sam Cachila will immediately be competing at the varsity level -- and a number of swimmers who started in the program last year.

New varsity swimmers move from one practice a day, which is mainly instructional, at the frosh/soph level to two daily sessions that often includes dry-land strength training techniques. Macejak hopes the switch to more intense training will result in dramatic time drops.

Some of that has already come to fruition as Niles West defeated Northside College Prep 110-76 on September 1 in the team’s first dual meet.

“There’s plenty of room for improvement for girls who have never done this type of training before,” Macejak said. “They could have just huge improvements just based on the training they are experiencing for the first time.”

BOYS SOCCER: Niles West won its last three games, defeating Downers Grove (2-0), Wheaton North (2-0) and Streamwood (2-1). Sam Essa scored the winning goal for Niles West against Wheaton North while Robert and Mario Ljubic had the goals in the Wolves’ 2-1 victory over Streamwood.

BOYS GOLF: Niles West won its most recent dual meet against Glenbrook South, edging the Titans 151-156 on August 30. The Wolves were led by Nick Hester, who shot a two-under par 33 to take medalist honors. Nate Lee also was under par with a 34.  

FOOTBALL: The Wolves fell 2-0 to Niles North in the Skokie Skirmish. Running back Jake Glotzer was tackled in the end zone for a safety near the start of the fourth quarter for the game’s only score.

Both teams finished the game on September 5 after the game was postponed due to lightning two days earlier.

GIRLS VOLLEYBALL: Niles West took seventh place at New Trier’s Summer’s End volleyball tournament last weekend. The Wolves went 3-2 in five games, defeating Regina Dominican 20-25, 25-19, 25-12 in the seventh place game.

The Wolves beat Wheeling and Waukegan, each in two games, but lost to Glenbrook North 12-25, 25-22, 15-13 to drop into the second-place pool. Niles West lost to Warren 25-23, 25-21 before defeating Regina Dominican.

CROSS COUNTRY: Niles West’s boys cross country team finished in ninth place at the Hornet / Red Devil Invitational last weekend. Marc-Daniel Julien (15:52) placed 17th while Neal Omar (16:01) took 25th to lead the Wolves.  

The girls placed 11th and were led by Michelle Karp (20:29), who finished in 42nd place.