Livonia – It’s never about winning, shouted Mike Venos over the din of his Bloomfield Hills Brother Rice boys swim and dive team celebrating the school’s 19th consecutive Catholic League championship Saturday at the Livonia Community Recreation Center.

“It’s about being the best.”

Well, it appears that the Warriors are going to be the best for a long, long time.

Venos, who has coached at Rice since 1997 and every one of the 19 league titles (as well as state championships in 2000 and 2007) has 28 freshmen and sophomores on his 35-member roster along with three juniors and four seniors.

“We’ve had a lot of teachable moments this year,” he said. “The upperclassmen have had a lot of opportunities to lead a group of kids.”

The youngsters are listening how to lead, particularly a freshman named Joe Krause.

“He’s one of the fastest swimmers in the state,” said Venos.

The lean 6-foot-2, 14-year-old displayed his talent by setting two individual records (one of them his own), tying a third, and ending the afternoon as the anchor on a record-breaking 400 yard freestyle relay team.

Brother Rice had a 15-point lead over Novi Detroit Catholic Central after three events when Krause won the 50 yard freestyle in 21.68 seconds, a hundredth-of-a-second better than Rice’s Chris Bagley in the 2007 CHSL championship.

The Warriors took a commanding lead in the team standings with a 1-4-5-8 finish in the 50-yard race and followed that up in the next event with  2-3-4-6 places in the 1 meter diving.

Brother Rice finished with 619 points to CC’s 503.5, the third year in a row that the Shamrocks were runners-up.

In Friday’s preliminaries, Krause tied Bagley’s 100 yard freestyle time of 47.45, also set in 2007.

Krause smashed his 50-yard record with a 21.51 clocking swimming the first leg of the 200-yard freestyle relay.

In the final event of the day, the 400-yard freestyle relay, Brother Rice had a slim 27-100ths lead over Catholic Central going into the final leg which featured Krause against another outstanding 14-year-old freshman, CC’s Colin Brinkman.

Krause beat Brinkman by two seconds, 46.79 to 48.79, to help establish the relay record of 3:14.33, breaking a time of 3:15.83 by another Rice quartet of Rob Cyrek, John Lessard, Collin Brosko and Jerry Fisher in 2004.

Rounding out the relay team were junior Josh Murrell, and sophomores Joe Morgan and Nick Becharas.

Brinkman had two of CC’s six first-place finishes. He won the 200-yard freestyle in 1:47 and the 500-yard freestyle in 4:52.98.

Asked why he does the punishing 500-yard which means 20 laps back and forth in the pool, he laughed. “The team needed someone to race it, so I volunteered” and added: “I love to swim.”

Shamrocks coach, Shannon Dunworth, said he “couldn’t expect more” from his squad. He inserted a couple of other sports’ metaphors to describe his team. “We’re climbing a mountain. I’m excited.” Happy with the team’s progress, he said. “We’re batting 1,000.”

Dunworth, in his sixth year at CC, has coached the Farmington Hills Mercy girls swim team for the last seven years, a school that has won the Catholic League title 43 years in a row.

The secret to success, he said, is having kids who work hard and “are willing to embrace the program.”

At the other end of the coaching spectrum, Alex Lamerand is in his first year coaching a first-year boys swim program at Pontiac Notre Dame Prep.

“I’m having a blast,” he said. “The team is beyond mediocre; they’re good, but it’s going to take two-three years to be even close as good as Rice or CC.”

TEAM SCORES: Brother Rice 619, Catholic Central 503.5, U-D Jesuit 375, Warren DeLaSalle 251.5, Notre Dame 101.

FIRST PLACE WINNERS:

200 yard medley relay – CC (Dan Burton 25.28-Ryan Newman 27.70-Nick Baldus 24.10-Dan Szabo 21.45) 1:38.53.

200 yard freestyle – Colin Brinkman (CC) 1:47.06.

200 yard intermediate – Joe Brinkman (CC) 1:56.23

50 yard freestyle – Joe Krause (BR) 21.68

1 meter diving (11 dives)  – Kenny Stilwell U-D) 303.05

100 yard butterfly – Josh Murrell (BR) 54.14

100 yard freestyle – Joe Krause (BR) 47.52

500 yard freestyle – Colin Brinkman (CC) 4:52.98

200 yard freestyle relay – Rice (Joe Krause 21.51-Logan Dankovich 22.15-Joe Morgan 22.45-Peter Palmer 22.25) 1:28.36

100 yard backstroke – Dan Burton (CC) 54.70

100 yard breaststroke – Ryan Newman (CC) 1:01.90

400 yard freestyle – Rice (Josh Murrell 48.72-Nick Becharas 50.13=Joe Morgan 48.69-Joe Krause 46.79) 3:14.33