We have become everyone's target

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GALESBURG - A year ago, the Galesburg High School boys 200-yard freestyle relay team notched the Silver Streaks swim team's best-ever finish at state.
But from that second-place team, only Devon Boydstun didn't graduate.
Last Saturday, Boydstun teamed with sophomore Kenton Cooper, junior Tom Fornander and sophomore Patrick Inness to place first in the 200 free relay at the United Township Sectional and advance to Friday's IHSA State Swim Meet at Winnetka New Trier High School.
"If you would have told me we were going to get this year's 200 free relay team to state at this time last year, I don't know if I would have believed it," said GHS coach John Willy. "I knew we had Devon and Kenton, but I wouldn't have picked the other two."
Cooper was an alternate on last year's team. But Fornander and Inness didn't become regulars on this year's 200 free relay until later in the season.
"Both those guys really came around this year in the sprints," Willy said. "It took awhile to find where Fornander would fit, but he really brought his sprint times down. And you never know what Patrick is going to do. He got really fired up during the sectional and gave us a real nice split."
While this year's team doesn't have the state championship dreams of last year's team - their sectional time is 34th out of the 35 schools that qualified - Willy said the experience for the underclassmen is priceless.
"Kenton went up last year as an alternate, so he's seen the atmosphere," Willy said. "But it's a whole different situation when you're trying to compete and their are 700 or 800 people on deck and a crowd of 2,000 in the stands. Things are so fast and furious, even warmups are something you have to get used to. Getting to state as a sophomore and a junior can make a big difference when you're a senior."
Willy said Galesburg's goal is to swim the state qualifying time of 1:30.19 and to beat Peoria Notre Dame.
"We'll need everyone to bring their times down," Willy said. "All the talk on the message boards is how fast Peoria Notre Dame is, so we'll use that as motivation and try to get them."
Warmups for Friday's preliminaries begin at 2 p.m. The meet begins at 3:30. The top 12 teams in Friday's 200 free relay prelim advance to Saturday's finals.