Livonia — As if the Warriors needed some extra encouragement at the CHSL boys swimming championships March 3 — with all the youth, depth and talent they have — a legend from the Warriors’ storied past was there on the sidelines cheering them on.
Fr. Ron Richards, who coached Bloomfield Hills Brother Rice to five consecutive state championships from 1994-98 along with five CHSL titles, watched his “good friend” and successor, Mike Venos, guide the Warriors to their 15th consecutive CHSL under him, 20 in all.
Fr. Richards was a lay faculty member and coach at Brother Rice. He recalled being instrumental in starting retreat programs and, in the process, giving talks about how God affected his life.
“God opened my heart,” he said. Fr. Richards left as a coach of swimmers to become a fisher of men. He was ordained in 2004 and has been pastor of St. John Neumann in Canton for the last two years.
Venos said his squad is “fun to be with,” and it’s a young team, too, pointing out that only two seniors are among the 13 qualifiers who will be competing in the Division 1 state finals March 9-10.
Lean and lanky sophomore Joe Krause is one of the youths who rank among the best in the state. He defended his 50-yard freestyle win of a year ago with a 21.20 time that broke his own record of 20.50 set in the previous day’s preliminaries. Krause also won the 100-yard butterfly and swam a lap of Rice’s winning 400-yard free relay.
The Warriors won only four of the dozen events, but won 30 other places two through eight — compared with runner-up Novi Detroit Catholic Central: six firsts, but just 17 finishers in places two through eight.
Shamrocks coach Shannon Dunsworth acknowledged Rice’s depth, but he, too, has a “bunch of young quality kids ... who will be getting better every year.”
Two of those quality swimmers are sophomore Colin Brinkman, who won both the 100-yard freestyle and the 500-yard free for a second year in a row, and freshman Jack Walsh, winner of the 200-yard intermediate, the 100-yard backstroke and part of the winning 200-yard medley relay.
Detroit U-D Jesuit and Warren DeLaSalle battled for third place. The Cubs prevailed, led by first-place winners junior Kenny Stillwell in diving and the 200-yard freestyle relay. Coach Jason Black was pleased with his squad’s overall performance. “They’re swimming great, times are dropping, and we’re all having fun.”
Jim Singelyn, a 1990 graduate of DeLaSalle, said his team is in a “rebuilding process. We have the biggest roster here today, 50 kids. We had only 15 when I started.”
That was three years ago. He was a city planner in Key West, Fla., and returned home to deal with family medical problems. “That’s when I heard about the swim coach job opening at DeLaSalle. I grabbed it and haven’t looked back.”
Division 3 Pontiac Notre Dame Prep wasn’t able to keep pace with the larger schools. But second-year coach Alex Lamerand noted that his swimmers set 10 new team records by a cumulative time of five minutes.
BOX 1
****Team scores:****
Brother Rice 604.5
Catholic Central 496.5
U-D Jesuit 352
Warren DeLaSalle 399
Notre Dame Prep 106.
BOX 2
****First-place winners:*****
200-yard medley relay – CC (Jack Walsh-Ryan Newman-Dan Szuba-Tim Szuba) 1:37.60.
200-yard freestyle – Colin Brinkman (CC) 1:45.76.
200-yard IM – Jack Walsh (CC) 1:56.40
50-yard freestyle – Joe Krause (BR) 21.20 (broke own record of 21.50 set in the preliminaries)
1-meter diving – Kenny Stillwell (U-D) 313.55
100-yard butterfly – Joe Krause (BR) 52.21
100-yard freestyle – Patrick Nodland (BR) 47.72
500-yard freestyle – Colin Brinkman (CC) 4:48.77
200-yard freestyle relay – U-D Jesuit (Eric Kuhn-Matthew Cullen-Steve Verderbar-Anthony Lesha) 1:29.91
100-yard backstroke – Jack Walsh (CC) 53.03
100-yard breaststroke – Ryan Newman (CC) 1:01.48
400-yard freestyle relay – BR (Gust Kouvaris-Josh Murrell-Joe Morgan-Joe Krause) 3:11.06
