“Dylan likes the two longer ….
“Dylan likes the two longer races too,” she added. “He is not too terribly far off from his sectional meet times from last year. Dylan works really hard in practice. He really does. There are still a couple things just to fine tune with his turns and things. He’s a great addition to the team.” Miller won the tight closest races. First, he swam the 100-yard freeestyle in 1:04.64 to beat Tomahawk’s Alex Norman by 0.57 seconds. Later, he took the 100yard backstroke in 1:18.53, clipping Flynn by 0.2 seconds. His freestyle time was just off his personal-best 1:03.94 set at last year’s sectional. In the backstroke, which he is swimming for the first time, he set a season-best time despite a less-thansmooth finish. “He was a little disappointed because he does like the butterfly,” Bergman said. “But in order for the other team to be competitive, they wouldn’t have had anyone in the 100 fly, he did the backstroke.”
The team of Miller, Adam Swedlund, Dittrich and Mitchell posted Medford’s fastest time of the early season in the 200yard freestyle, winning by 1.14 seconds in a time of 1:56.47. Those same four swimmers won the 200-yard medley relay in 2:06.23, beating the Hatchets by 13.98 seconds.
Mitchell set a personal-best time in the 50-yard freestyle at 26.78 seconds. He placed second behind Tomahawk’s Adam Hall (24.82). Swedlund was third in 29.39 seconds.
Swedlund cut 7.09 seconds from his previous best in the 100-yard breaststroke while taking second in 1:16.48, just ahead of Mitchell’s third-place time of 1:21.44. Hall eked out the win in 1:15.8. “What a meet for Adam,” Bergman said. “That was great. That 1:16 is what Jacob podiumed with sixth place at conference last year. It was nice for Adam to have that competition with Adam Hall from Tomahawk. That competition headto- head really helped him. His pullouts were really good tonight. Adam has come a long way from club season last year.”
Medford traveled to Lakeland Tuesday to make up a Dec. 10 postponement. That meet was held after this week’s early holiday deadline for The Star News. The Raiders host Menomonie this coming Tuesday, Dec. 29 in a 5:30 p.m. non-conference meet.
