Senior-dominated Raiders make last stand at sectional
WIAA DIV. 2 BOYS SWIMMING
The abbreviated 2020-21 season ended Saturday for the Medford Raiders with a handful of season-best efforts at the WIAA Division 2 Rhinelander sectional.
The Raiders placed sixth out of seven teams with 174 points, edging Wausau East by eight points in the final standings. Great Northern Conference champion Rhinelander pulled away and won its third straight sectional title with 403 points. Menomonie (313), Rice Lake (286), Lakeland (277) and Tomahawk (226) finished second through fifth.
Freshman Adam Swedlund earned Medford’s highest placement of the afternoon by finishing fifth in the 100-yard breaststroke, an event that featured two season-best times for the Raiders. Swedlund’s time of 1:13.37 was his best by 1.44 seconds and gave him a top-five finish by 2.26 seconds over Lakeland’s Troy Rice. Raider senior Nathan Sislo took 10th in 1:21.52, his best time of the season by 0.21 seconds.
Medford had individual success in the 200-yard freestyle where senior Isaac Dittrich set a personal-best time of 2:20.58 that put him in 12th place out of 21 swimmers. Sophomore Dylan Kraemer set a personal-best too with his 16th-place time of 2:33.82, cutting 4.17 seconds, and Swedlund was 17th in 2:34.06.
Medford’s distance stalwart the past couple of years, Dittrich added a seventhplace finish in his final 500-yard freestyle with a time of 6:27.96, while Kraemer set another personal-best with his 11th-place time of 6:57.12, which was his first time under the seven-minute mark.
Senior Ethan Kraemer came up 0.05 seconds shy of his best time of the season in the 100-yard backstroke. He took seventh out of 11 swimmers in that race with his time of 1:12.76. He was eighth in the 100-yard butterfly at 1:16.51, just behind senior teammate Abe Miller, who finished seventh in 1:13.15. Both were a little shy of season and personal bests.
Senior Tahtankka Damm closed his career with a couple of solid swims in the freestyle sprints. He was 10th in the 100yard race at 59.58 seconds, his third time under a minute in his last four meets. Sislo set a personal record with his 12thplace time of 1:04.15 that beat his old record by 0.48 seconds.
Damm was 11th in the 50-yard freestyle at 26.58 seconds while Miller was 13th in a personal-best 28.63 seconds.
Medford also set new season-best times in two of the meet’s three relay races while finishing seventh in each one.
Swimming together for the first time since late December, Swedlund, Dylan Kraemer, Dittrich and Sislo swam the 200-yard freestyle relay in 1:57.9, dropping almost five seconds. The 400-yard freestyle team of Miller, Dittrich, Ethan Kraemer and Damm posted a time of 4:14.49 that was almost five seconds faster than the 4:20.27 they had against Lakeland on Jan. 14.
Ethan Kraemer, Swedlund, Miller and Damm swam the 200-yard medley relay in 2:03.04, which was 0.73 seconds off their best time of the winter.
With the departures of the five seniors, head coach Shari Bergman is left with two known returning swimmers in Swedlund and Dylan Kraemer as she hopes for more new recruits to add to the roster in 2021-22.
Rhinelander qualified 11 entries for the WIAA Division 2 state meet set for Friday night at Waukesha South High School. Lakeland is sending seven entries and Tomahawk sophomore Zach Hanse qualified in the 200-yard individual medley and 100-yard breaststroke.
