WINNETKA – When Sam Stewart dived into the water Saturday at the state finals, goggles – as always – covered his eyes.

When the Champaign Central swimmer came up to take his first stroke, they had slipped down to his chin.

Stewart's eye wear remained there for the rest of the 100-yard butterfly, but that didn't deter the Maroon junior from continuing to compete or from finishing a career-best third.

"He swam a fantastic race, especially with no goggles on," Central coach Matt Hopkins said. "A lot of people were really impressed with the fact that he just kept going.

"I've seen it happen, and I've seen some kids kind of crumble under that. They don't finish. They don't keep swimming fast. They just sort of are mentally defeated. We're really proud with how strong he was with it."

Hopkins said Stewart would have been at least a half-second faster had the goggles stayed in place. As it was, Stewart finished in 50.14 seconds – a mere hundredth of a second behind runner-up Connor Black of Mundelein.

"He got touched out at the end partially because he couldn't see the wall," Hopkins said.