One in one hundred: Dixon’s Thompson advances to final in 100 free

WINNETKA – Rose Thompson popped her head out of the water Friday, looked at the scoreboard at the far end of the pool and put her thumbs up.

The public-address announcer at the IHSA girls swimming preliminaries turned those thumbs and Thompson’s smile upside down. He announced that the Dixon sophomore, a swimmer for the Byron co-op, had been disqualified from the 50-yard freestyle for making a forward flinch on the starting block.

Thompson, seeded third in the race, could have let the DQ ruin her afternoon. Instead, she came back strong in the 100 freestyle and qualified for Saturday’s finals with the 10th-best time of 52.86 seconds.

“It was a shock to get this far and have that happen,” Thompson said. “But it wasn’t going to do me any good contemplating it any further. It was out of my hands; all I could do was go back out there and do my best.”

Thompson is lone local survivor of the preliminaries, which pare each event down to 12 finalists who will compete Saturday for state titles.

Senior Allie Yemm had Sterling’s highlight by swimming a personal-best time of 1 minute, 8.11 seconds.

“It’s the first time that I’ve ever cut time from the sectional to the state meet,” Yemm said. “I am really proud of that.”

Yemm was also part of Sterling’s 200 medley and 400 freestyle relays.

The 200 medley, which also included Sarah Wolber, Sophie Borer and Hannah Munson, finished 24th in 1:52.38. The relay of Yemm, Wolber, Munson and Rachel Lathe finished in 3:47.92.

“I am really glad to have finished my meet with that relay,” Yemm said. “I always have fun with that group of girls and we swam well.”

Munson, a junior, finished 42nd in the 200 freestyle in 2:03.37.

“This was a really good learning experience for all of us coming back,” Munson said. “We can take this and build off it for next year.”

Newman senior Marissa Gill won her 50 freestyle heat in 25.33 seconds.

“I cut so much time last week that I hoped to do it again this week,” Gill said. “I just didn’t get a great start because I was being cautious so I didn’t get DQ’d or anything.”