Lake Forest High School junior Kevin Donahue competes in the 200 medley relay at the Lake County Invite. He finished sixth in two individual events and helped LF place third in the 400 free relay. PHOTOGRAPHY BY JON DURR
Kevin Donahue is working on his Eagle Scout project. It is only on paper now, due to be completed in the spring. The Lake Forest High School junior swimmer plans to create a garden and build a bench on the grounds of Fort Sheridan.
Donahue, a busy boy, has been working on another project since the day after his sophomore swim season ended last winter. The unofficial name of the project: Kevin Donahue, faster swimmer.
Another Scout project, minus the “Eagle.”
“I worked really hard in the offseason,” Donahue said at the Lake County Invitational at Stevenson on Dec. 19. “I didn’t take a day off. Right now, I’m pretty tired; we all are. We practiced in our pool, for about an hour and a half, before the meet today, sprint work mostly. Our coach [Cindy Dell] likes to say, at this point in the season, ‘Swim tired, swim well.’ ”
A drained Donahue swam quite well at the 10-team County meet in Lincolnshire. The irrefutable evidence — the finishes and the times, next to his name — was there for all to see, on the results sheets, on … paper. He touched sixth in the 200-yard IM (2:05.94) and sixth in the 100 butterfly (55.39) and helped the 400 free relay (with senior Michael Hambleton and juniors Wyatt Foss and Dylan Boyd) place third (3:21.16). What made each of his sixth-place efforts more significant was the heat in which Donahue had been assigned. He raced in the fourth heat — the penultimate heat — in both events and dropped nearly a combined four seconds off his seed times.
Tired swimmers are supposed to swim slower, right?
“Everybody stepped up,” Dell said. “I love this team. It’s a fun team, a hard-working team. It’s a bunch of eager beavers, fighting through each meet, all the yardage [in practices]. They’re not afraid to compete, and they’re not afraid to learn. I couldn’t be happier. We had a great meet [third place, 162 points].”
The Scouts garnered the most possible points in the first event (diving), getting a first-place — and pool-record 509.05 points — performance from senior Alexander Streightiff and a runner-up showing (476.15) from senior John-Michael Diveris in the meet’s morning session. Streightiff finished in fourth place at the 2014-15 state meet. Boyd, seventh at state in the 200 free and 11th in the 100 fly last winter, sped to first place in the 200 free (1:42.15) and topped the field in the 100 fly (51.32). He later combined with Foss, Hambleton and junior Elliot Hangos to clock a fifth-place 1:33.64 in the 200 free relay. Foss contributed sixth-place points in the 100 free (51.03), and Hambleton medaled in the 500 free (sixth place, 5:02.74).
Back to Donahue, who finished “16th, maybe 15th” in his individual events at last year’s County meet. A diver in the Donahue household, older sister Mary Rose, encouraged a young Kevin Donahue, back in his grade-school days, to stick with swimming, a demanding sport, a sport without a ball. The siblings trained as Scout Aquatics club swim members. Mary Rose then focused only on diving in high school, qualifying for the state meet in her junior (2012) and senior (2013) seasons.
Among the spectators sitting up in the stands at last weekend’s County meet was a Colorado College sophomore, an all-Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference diver in 2014-15. She watched a boy she had known her entire life climb a podium twice to receive a sixth-place medal. The boy was wearing a bathing suit and a tired smile.
The proudest onlooker in the natatorium had to be Mary Rose Donahue.
Notable: Host Stevenson (301 points) and Barrington (271) finished 1-2 at the Lake County Invite on Dec. 19. … Three Scouts (seniors Kuba Puchalski and Justin Jacobson and sophomore Collin Robinson) raced against three entrants from three other schools in the third heat of the 50 free at the County meet. The three LFHS entrants climbed blocks 4, 5 and 6 for the start of the event. Robinson, lane 5, placed 12th overall, with a time of 24.44. His seed time: 24.44. Match game. … The Scouts’ 200 medley relay of juniors Kevin Donahue and Elliot Hangos and sophomores Alex Ortiz and Will Paschke finished seventh in 1:45.93, missing a medal by one spot.
Alexander Streightiff of the Scouts performs a dive on his way to a pool record at the Lake County Invite. PHOTOGRAPHY BY JON DURR