WELCOME

The Stillwater Starz is a developmental summer swim team and a member of the Naperville Swim Conference (NSC). A volunteer-driven 501(c)(3) nonprofit, our mission is to develop confident, capable young swimmers and foster a love of competitive swimming in a safe, supportive, and fun environment.

Our swimmers range from 4-18 years of age, and most are residents of the Stillwater subdivision and other nearby communities in southwest Naperville, Plainfield, and Oswego. For our youngest swimmers, their time on the Starz is often their first experience with competitive swimming. It’s also where many of our returning swimmers, some of whom now swim year-round in club and school programs, got their start. Join us this summer, and find out what fun you can have when we shoot for the Starz together!

Starz Roundup: Monday, June 23, 2025 & Home vs. CB TOMORROW

Lea Fortkamp

 

Good Afternoon, Starz Families!

 

Welcome to another week of summer swim. This email contains important information about pool deck repair, swimmer time drops, championship meets, and MORE! Tomorrow, we’ll face the Mudrats of Centennial Beach at home; you’ll find swimmer and worker lists for tomorrow’s home meet at the end of this email, but please take some time to read ALL of today’s information carefully

 

NAPERVILLE TENNIS CLUB WRAP-UP

Last week, following Hobson West, I mentioned that hosting a meet isn’t easy. There’s so much work that goes into a meet that families don’t see—much of it happening days before athletes even dip a toe in the pool. This weekend, we learned how easy it is for a single file attachment to throw a meet sideways.

I know that Saturday morning was stressful for many of us, and that initial confusion regarding event entries was frustrating. If nothing else, this weekend revealed that sometimes, it’s not initially clear how a problem came to be, and that really, this isn’t the how question that matters. The how’s that matter are How can we respond? How can we adjust? How can we help?

On Saturday, a team parent told me she realized long ago that one can tell a great deal about another person by how he or she reacts to being inconvenienced. I’ve thought a lot about this idea over the past two days, and I want to thank everyone who, in spite of the inconvenience, frustration, and heat on Saturday morning, chose to step up.

Thank you to those parent workers who rolled with the punches, especially a bull pen crew who reorganized swimmers on the fly, informed them of changes to their events, circulated heat sheets, and made sure that swimmers who didn’t have events assigned found open lanes to swim in.

Thanks, too, to our team of coaches for helping swimmers communicate their names to timers so that their swims would be accurately recorded. Most of all, thanks to Lisa Coronel at NTC; she worked well into Saturday night reconstructing the meet from scratch and verifying swimmers’ names and times so that their efforts would be properly attributed.

We learned a lot this weekend. We’ve developed systems to avoid future trouble, and we learned what we can pull of when a group of people working for the kids pulls together. Thanks to all who helped; we have many new personal bests and City times to show for your efforts.

 

SWIMMER GROWTH

We’ve been thrilled with the huge number of time drops we’ve seen so far this season. This morning, I handed off time drop reports from Huntington Estates, Hobson West, and NTC to our coaching staff along with a series of snazzy new posters they’ll be adding to the patio soon.

Swimmers can check their age group’s poster all season long to track their personal time drops. For every four time improvements a swimmer earns (across all events and meets), $1 in concessions cash will be deposited into his or her folder for use at home meets and our end-of-season celebration. If your swimmer finishes the season with unused concessions cash, don’t throw it away! Concessions cash carries over.

We also love to call out our swimmers’ time drops in social media posts and in these emails, but this has been a challenge with our early meets as some results were slower to populate. Look for time drop updates on posters and via email and socials soon!

 

CITY QUALIFIERS

We’re excited to reports that 45 Starz swimmers are now qualified for the City Championship meet at Naperville Central High School, and the list is growing with every meet! Check out the list below; you can also find this list on our website HERE, where it will be updated following each meet.

 

NSC City Championship Meet

Individual Event Qualifiers

2025 (as of 23JUN25)

 

GIRLS

Conner, Marissa: 50FR, 50BK

Cummings, Madison: 25FR, 50FR, 25BR, 25FL

Dalo, Macy: 50BK

Dela Cruz, Chloe: 25FR, 25BK, 25FL

Eggert, Lucy: 25FR, 25BK, 25BR

Fortkamp, Zoe: 50BK, 50BR, 50FL

Gamad, Nadia: 50BK, 50BR, 50FL, 100IM

Gamad, Nellie: 25FR, 25BK, 25BR, 25FL

Harp, Maddi: 100BK

Jin, Emily: 50FR, 50BK, 50BR, 100IM

Jones, Grace: 25FR

Kram, Jessica: 50FR, 50BK, 50BR, 50FL, 100IM

Kurpiewski, Ola: 50FR, 50BK, 100IM

Magomedova, Alisha: 25FR, 25BK, 25BR, 25FL

Magomedova, Dalila: 50FR, 50BK, 50BR, 100IM

Murgas, Natalie: 25FR, 50FR, 25BK, 25BR, 25FL

Rosensweet, Caroline: 50FR, 50BK, 50BR, 50FL, 100IM

Spychala, Arden: 25BR, 25FL

Tersiev, Stefi: 100BK

Todevski, Emma: 50BK

Verdoorn, Emma: 25FR, 50FR, 25BK, 25FL

Yim, Rachel: 100BK, 100BR, 50FL, 100IM

Yu, Emi: 25FR, 50FR, 25BK, 25BR

 

BOYS

Fortkamp, Henry: 50BK, 50BR, 100IM

Gottemukala, Samarth: 50BK, 50FL, 100IM

Hu, Ethan: 100FR, 100BR, 100IM

Johnston, Kagan: 100BK, 100BR, 100IM

Kathuria, Arnav: 50BK, 50FL

Kawdia, Avyan: 50BK, 50FL

Li, Hunter: 50FL

Li, Oliver: 25FR, 25BR

Murphy, George: 50BK, 50BR

Nadtochiy, Lucas: 50FR, 50BK, 50BR

Papadimitriou, Leandros: 25BK

Pratury, Kaushal: 50BK

Ranjith, Mithun: 50BK, 50BR, 50FL, 100IM

Rosensweet, Henry: 25BK

Rosensweet, Sam: 50BK, 50FL

Sahani, Shyam: 50FR, 100BK

Sivakumar, Sachin: 50FR, 100FR, 50FL, 100IM

Song, Philip: 50FR, 50BR, 100IM

Szweda, James: 50BK

Wu, Gabriel: 50FR, 100FR, 100BK, 50FL, 100IM

Yu, Charlie: 50FR, 50FL,100IM

Yuan, Ted: 50FR, 100FR, 100BK, 100BR, 100IM

 

CHAMPIONSHIP MEETS: DECLARE TODAY

It’s time! Declarations for BOTH of this season’s championship meets, Classic and City, are OPEN on our website. Representing one’s team at an NSC championship meet is the culmination of a full season of hard work, and it’s an honor. We ask that all swimmers who will be in town and who will have swum at least three regular season meets this season, COMMIT to represent the Starz at the championship meet for which they’re qualified.

Which meet is the right one for your swimmer? Check out this document to find the answer. You can also visit the Classic, City, & Qualifying Times tab on our website (under Resources) for additional details. Interested in finding out how close your swimmer is to achieving a City qualifying time or how many cuts he or she has already achieved? Grab your cell phone, and check out this 3-minute video.

Once you know which meet is right for your swimmer, please DECLARE TODAY using our website or the SportsEngineMotion app! Accurate, early swimmer estimates are a huge help to the committees who plan these meets, and we want to do our part.

 

POOL DECK REPAIR

Thanks to those private lesson families who accommodated the emergency deck repair completed this morning at our pool. About two weeks ago, I noticed that the concrete around one of our backstroke flagpole collars had begun to crack. We are thrilled with how quickly our HOA and management company have responded and are pleased to report that the deck will be ready to go for tomorrow night’s meet!

Thanks to all involved in this efficient repair, and thanks, too, to Bud’s Concrete for being the only local company willing to attend to this relatively small, but nonetheless critical, job. If you need driveway or patio work done, please consider Bud’s!

 

UPCOMING MEETS

TOMORROW (TUESDAY)

HOME vs. CENTENNIAL BEACH

Positive Check-In. Opens:

4:30 p.m. (consider arriving earlier—parking is limited)

Positive Check-In Closes/Warmups Begin:

4:45 p.m. (those not checked in by 4:45 p.m. will be scratched without exception)

Worker Check-In w/ Asheley:

4:30-4:45 p.m., following swimmer check-in (near the small pool, on deck)

Meet Start:

5:30 p.m.

 

DECLARED SWIMMERS:

TOMORROW (TUESDAY) vs. CENTENNIAL BEACH

The following swimmers have been declared for this meet. No swimmers can be added at this time.

 

PARENT WORKERS:

TOMORROW (TUESDAY) vs. CENTENNIAL BEACH

Announcer

Fortkamp, Mark

 

Backup/Sub Timer

English, Jordan

 

Bag Tag Distributor

Dalo, Jeff

Shimon, Benjamin

 

Bullpen

Frias, Vanessa

Oberoi, Sonali

Gwaliorkar, Abhay

Mohite, Abhishek

Eggert, Laura

Computer and Scoring

Dubash, Roxana

Rosensweet, Katie

 

Concessions

Jastrow, Christine/Scott

House, Lisa

Schurr, Cassandra

Toktosunova, Aliia/Amir

 

Concessions Assistant

Prabhakar, Ajay

 

Concessions Chairperson

Cook, Kimberly

Malik, Shweta

 

Floater

Reed, Sara

Smith, LaToya

 

Griller

Endres, Anna

 

Grill Helper/Runner

Wolff, Lori

Asch, Justin

 

Head Clerk

Dela Cruz, Rochelle

 

Head Timer

Jules, Desiree

 

Meet Director

Fortkamp, Lea

 

Meet Runner

Barr, Jennifer

 

Official (stroke and turn)

Sluciak, Jason    

OToole, Kristen

Adaszczyk, Marzena

Sadhu, Santosh

 

Official (starter)

Jones, Eric

 

Photographer

Conner, Katie

 

Scorer

Lagankina, Daria

 

Set up/Clean up/Tear Down

Maheshwari, Yashvi

 

Timer

Knight, Kristin

Knight, Chris

Kathuria, Preeni

Asch, Katie

Zhao, Yan

Bandlamudi, Srikanth

Loegel Jaishankar, Elisabeth

Kawdia, Niti

Gupta, Santosh

Gupta, Pratima

Wojdyla, Adam

Kawdia, Akash

 

Volunteer Coordinator

Kram, Asheley

 

That’s it for today! Have a great afternoon, and we’ll look forward to seeing many of you tomorrow, at home, vs. Centennial Beach.

 

Lea

Stillwater Starz Parent Board