Evanston seniors Dylan Phillips and Caleb Richins both earned state-qualifying times on Saturday at the Evanston Invitational
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Dylan Phillips had a fever of 101 degrees on Friday night. The Evanston High School senior knew he would have to decide if he would be able to swim at the Evanston Invitational on Saturday.
Phillips was reminded by his dad, Geoffrey, of Michael Jordan in 1997 when the NBA great took the floor for Game 5 of the NBA finals while battling a severe case of the flu when the Chicago Bull went up against the Utah Jazz.
It later became known as the Flu Game after Jordan scored 38 points to lead the Bulls to a 90-88 win against the Jazz.
Hearing that story was an inspiration to Phillips, and the multi-state qualifier decided to compete. Once he got in the water, Phillips was able to put his illness in the back of his mind and turn his focus to swimming.
“After a while, I thought it was a good idea to swim and just see what I could do,” Phillips said.
What he did was not expected, given his bill of health. But Phillips, surprised many when he qualified for state in the 200-yard freestyle with a time of 1:59.71.
“He’s been sick all week,” Evanston assistant coach Kate Schmidt said. “He hasn’t felt good. But he’s been pushing through and working hard in practice. I knew he wasn’t feeling very good (Friday), but he told me (Saturday) morning he wanted to get that (200-yard freestyle) qualifying time.”
Phillips didn’t stop there.
Seven events later, he qualified for state in the 100-yard backstroke with a time of 1:01.61
“He didn’t know if he could do it again, because he just wasn’t feeling well,” Schmidt said. “He swam an awesome 200 freestyle, and then surprising qualified in the backstroke. He didn’t know if he was going to qualify in that, but he did. That was really cool to see.”
Phillips had already qualified for state in the 500-yard freestyle and the 200 IM earlier in the year. His goal is to set a new school record in the 500, set by the late Jason Crompton nearly three decades ago.
Currently, Phillips’ best time in the event is 5:05 —10 seconds off the record.
“It’s a 10-second drop, but I’m feeling pretty good about it,” Phillips said. “Today has been a huge confidence booster, especially being sick and coming out and qualifying in two events. I’m feeling pretty good about the record right now.”
Phillips wasn’t the only swimmer for Evanston to make the state cut on Saturday.
Senior Caleb Richins will also be swimming at the state meet in Gillette after qualifying in the 100-yard butterfly with a time of 1:01.97.
“I just feel ecstatic,” Richins said. “It’s probably one of the greatest feelings in my life — to see how far I’ve come and achieve what I wanted to.”
While he has swum on state relay teams in previous years, Richins has made it his goal to qualify for state in an individual event since his freshman season.
Now he has achieved that goal.
“I’m so excited that he qualified this year,” Schmidt said. “He’s been working so hard. He worked really hard last year. He came out with a great attitude this year and he was ready for his senior year. I had a feeling he was going to qualify this year, and I’m so excited he did in the butterfly his home meet.”
TEAM RESULTS
