EVANSTON - Justin Wolfe and his Bloomington High School swim coach, Bob Loy, had a pre-race chat regarding Saturday's 100-yard butterfly state final.

They concluded that in a perfect world, Wolfe would kick hard out of the third turn and gain just enough of an edge to win a state championship.

Consider it a perfect world, if only for a day.

The BHS senior touched the wall in a career-best, school-record and Pantagraph-area all-time best 49.72 seconds to edge Jimmy Brooks of St. Charles North (50.02) and Kyler VanSwol of Lincoln-Way East (50.04) for his first state title.

"He swam his perfect race when he needed to," Loy said.

"We knew there would be three guys pretty much even with one length to go," said Wolfe, who was third in Friday's qualifying round at Evanston High School. "I kicked just a little farther than them (on the turn). They had to extend their stroke too long to finish into the wall. The extra kick ended up winning it for me.

"Coach talked about how on the last length I had to give it something no one else had and kick it into another gear. That's what happened."

Wolfe, fourth a year ago, surpassed his previous career best of 49.98 he set Friday. Prior to Friday, the area record was 50.55 by East Peoria's Matt Garrison in 1996 and Wolfe's school record was 50.59.

"It hasn't hit me yet," he said of the state championship. "I've been working for it for four years, and I can honestly say I've thought about it every day. It's the best feeling I've ever had."

Loy said Wolfe's extra "two or three kicks" on the final turn "put him on a different stroke rhythm than the other two."

"That made him come into the wall perfect," Loy added. "They had to take another half a stroke."

Wolfe also set a school record in the 100 backstroke Saturday, placing eighth in 52.17 seconds. He qualified 11th Friday with a time of 53.32. On Saturday, he narrowly missed the area record of 51.96 set by University High's Kyle Jackson in 2000.

"After seeing I could do what I did in the fly, I thought, 'Hey, this is my last race in high school,'" Wolfe said. "I ended up going really fast in the backstroke."

Wolfe paced BHS to 21 points, good for 20th place in the team standings.

Normal West's Justin Ruszkowski placed 10th in diving with a 387.70 total. Ruszkowski, fifth last year, moved up one spot from Friday.