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lockportlegend.com Sports
the Lockport Legend | May 17 2018 | 47
fastbreak
1st and 3
Adam Jomant/
22nd Century Media
A memorable day for
LTHS girls track and
field
1. A successful competition
The Lockport girls
track team captured
third place with
69 points at the
Thursday, May 10,
sectional it hosted.
2. The relay squad
The relay foursome
of junior Kate
Wojciewicz and
sophomores Madison
Polinski, Abbey
Kozak and Anna
Kozak (9:36.78) outpaced
the Griffins by
nearly 10 seconds.
3. Also qualifying
Kate Wojciewicz
qualified for state in
the 800-meter run.
Sarah Gomez qualified
in high jump,
Andi Hennessey did
so for pole vault, Josephine
Baber in the
3,200-meter run and
Jacqueline Mathis in
the 200-meter dash.
Going Places
Sweis earns unexpected rowing scholarship from UW
Randy Whalen
Freelance Reporter
“Row, row, row, your
boat.”
That’s exactly what Lockport’s
own Jake Sweis will
be doing starting this coming
fall.
But, unlike the song, it
won’t be gently. Sweis will
be attending the University
of Wisconsin at Madison.
There he will be a member
of the rowing team.
The whole thing came
about because of a casual
mention to Sweis.
“My cousin, Megan Tomaszewski’s
boyfriend
lives in Madison,” Sweiss
explained. “He mentioned
to me that the University
of Wisconsin has a rowing
team there and that 60-to-
70 percent of the guys on
the team are walk-ons. I was
going to apply to Wisconsin-
Madison anyway, since it’s
my dream school.
“So I emailed the coach
[Chris Clark] and then went
to a one-day clinic there last
fall, in November. At the
end, everyone did a test on
the ergometer rowing machine.
Well, I got the second
best score behind a kid who
was very experienced in
rowing.”
That alone got the attention
of the rowing coaches at
the university.
“As soon as the test was
over, an assistant coach
[Lowell McNicholas] talked
to me to see if I’d like to
row for the team next year,”
Sweis said. “I talked to them
again the following Monday
and I committed right then.
It was a dream come true. I
knew I couldn’t pass up this
opportunity, I had to take it.”
A year ago, Sweis, who
plans to major in computer
science and be a software
engineer, never thought this
would happen.
“No, I probably never
would have believed them,”
he said when asked if he
ever thought he’d get a college
scholarship for rowing.
“It’s not something I ever
did before, but I’m beyond
excited to be going to Wisconsin
for rowing.
“In high school I swam
for three years and played
water polo the past four
years. I looked into college
water polo, but on the collegiate
level there’s all sorts
of competition for scholarships,
those mostly go to
people from the California
schools.”
Jason Ozbolt, who has
been the Porter boys swimming
coach for the past five
years, doesn’t know of anyone
else from Lockport who
has been on a rowing team.
But he knows that Sweis is
up to the challenge.
“No, I don’t think I’ve
had anyone in rowing, this
is a first,” Ozbolt said. “It
couldn’t happen to a better
kid, it’s great for him. He’s a
great team player. While he
had his own personal goals,
Jake Sweis (left) played water polo and swam at LTHS, but earned a rowing scholarship at
the University of Wisconsin at Madison. 22nd Century Media File Photo
he was also focused on the
team goals too. He’s very
empathetic with others and
that’s why he’s such a good
team player.”
Lockport boys water polo
coach Joe Lewandowski
also knows that Sweis will
be a success.
“Jake told me that he got
the second best score on the
ergometer and he was going
to make a switch,” Lewandowski
said of Sweis deciding
to give up water polo in
college in favor of rowing.
“It’s amazing, but that’s Jake
and the type of athlete he is.
As soon as I saw him as a
freshman, I knew he’d excel.
He is big, strong, fast, and he
makes a coach’s job easy.”
Wherever he fits into the
team, Sweis plans to keep
doing that at Wisconsin.
“The season is in the
fall and then mostly in the
spring,” Sweis said of the
rowing schedule. “Since
Wisconsin is a Big Ten team
we race all over the country.
We race a lot of Ivy League
and California schools. It
[competition] is like a like
a race, so being in swimming
I’m familiar with that.
There’s different rowing
events where you are single
in a boat, double in a boat,
all the way up to nine people
in a boat.
“Our first day of school is
Sept. 5 and the season starts
then. But this summer I will
go up to a camp to get used
to the sport, the facilities, everything.
[Rowing] allowed
me to get a scholarship to a
Big Ten school. Now I just
want to enjoy the rest of the
water polo season. Then I
will be doing a lot of exercises
over the summer to
build my endurance.”
LISTEN UP
“I was really happy to get third place. We placed in a lot of
events. I’m happy for the ones that made it. There were some
bittersweet moments for some seniors, but also a lot of good
things, too.”
Joe Kravitz — LTHS girls track and field coach, on his team finishing in
third at its sectional
Tune In
Girls Track and Field
Last laps — Thursday, May 17 to Saturday, May 19,
at Eastern Illinois University
• The qualifying Porters head downstate to
Charleston to compete in the state tournament.
Index
41 - Athlete of the Week
41 - This Week In
FASTBREAK is compiled by Contributing
Editor Thomas Czaja, tom@homerhorizon.
com.