Big finish for Raiders at girls swim sectional

WIAA DIV. 2 SWIMMING

With Aiden Denzer and Sydney Sperl qualifying for state being the obvious highlights, it was also noteworthy that the rest of the Medford Raiders all set season-best times Saturday during the team’s fourthplace finish at the WIAA Division 2 Merrill girls swimming sectional.

The Raiders scored 211 points, earned nine top-six finishes in the meet and beat the host Blue Jays, who had beaten them 93-77 in an early-season dual meet. As expected, Rhinelander easily won the team championship with 337 points, but it was close after that between Wausau East (241), Rice Lake (226), Medford (211), Merrill (209) and the Ladysmith Co-op (188).

“Every single girl got a PR for the season, which was awesome,” head coach Morgan Wilson said. “That’s what we want to see. That’s why they were working so hard in October, when you get those double days in and hope the taper works. And it did. It worked for everybody. Some of them were really surprised by how well they did. We were just super happy for everybody. It was a great day overall.

“We were really happy to get fourth place,” Wilson added. “We kinda knew going into it that Rhinelander was going to run away with it like they have in the past. To be up there with Wausau East and Rice Lake, those were some of the bigger schools, and we beat Merrill and we beat Ladysmith, that was a really nice surprise at the end. We definitely wanted to be in that top-six conversation.”

Denzer and Sperl both qualified for state in the 200-yard individual medley with third- and fourth-place finishes. Denzer’s time was 2:21.51, a drop of 4.64 seconds from her previous season-best. Sperl’s time was 2:22.36, a drop of 3.47 seconds. They finished behind Merrill’s Amber Winter (2:14.17) and Lakeland’s Olivia Mickle (2:19.33). Wittenberg-Birnamwood’s Annika Resch was fifth and was the last state qualifier with a time of 2:27.28.

Denzer’s personal-best time of 1:04.15 in the 100-yard backstroke was good for second place at the sectional behind Colby-Abbotsford’s Madisyn Schraufnagel (1:03.77) and gave her the last qualifying spot in the state field for that race. Sectional champions in each race earn automatic state berths. The rest in each race are filled by the top 12 non-winning times statewide.

Denzer and Sperl will swim in the state meet Friday at 5:30 p.m. at Waukesha South High School’s natatorium.

Medford nearly had another qualifier in Saturday’s first event, the 200yard medley relay. The team of Denzer, Chelsea Gebauer, Sperl and Jordyn Johnson placed fourth in 1:58.27, the best time of the year by a Medford team by a five-second margin. They trailed third-place Rice Lake by 1.79 seconds and missed the state qualifying standard of 1:56.92 by 1.35 seconds. Rhinelander (1:55.74) and Merrill (1:56.18) got to state by placing first and second.

Sperl added a sixth-place finish in the 100-yard freestyle with her time of 57.06 seconds, a season-best by 2.08 seconds. Only two girls qualified for state in the race, Rhinelander’s Abi Winnicki (51.83) and Genna Fugle (55.58). Sophomore Erica Brandner was 13th in 1:02.58, dropping her time by 1.44 seconds, and senior Kirsten Weix was 18th in 1:05.85, cutting 2.42 seconds off her previous season-best. Weix later swam the 100-yard breaststroke in 1:28.25, good for 23rd place a drop of 5.35 seconds.

“Kirsten dropped a lot of time,” Wilson said. “She had a really good time in the 100 free and in the breaststroke, I don’t think she had been under 1:30 ever. That was super awesome for her to go out on a high note like that in her last meet.”

Junior Colby Bergman capped a solid year with a fifth-place time in the 500yard freestyle at 5:53.64, dropping from her previous best of 5:58.26. She wasn’t alone as freshman Adalyn Dittrich took 11th in 6:13.46, a drop of 1.99 seconds, and sophomore Cadance Haenel was 20th in 6:45.27, a drop of 3.17 seconds. Madeline Bunton of the Ladysmith Co-op was the lone state qualifier, winning in 5:31.19.

Junior Breanna Kraemer joined Denzer in the 100-yard backstroke competition and took sixth in 1:07.94, knocking off 1.05 seconds from her previous best of the fall. Gebauer, a sophomore, took sixth in the 100-yard breaststroke at 1:13.67, which was 1.45 seconds faster than her previous season-best, and junior Jordyn Johnson wasn’t far behind in 1:15.88, good for eighth place and a big drop of 3.02 seconds.

Another sixth-place finish was earned by the 200-yard freestyle relay team of Gebauer, Kraemer, Johnson and Sperl, which finished in 1:48.88, 3.64 seconds faster than any other Medford team has gone this year. The 400-yard freeestyle team of Bergman, Tana Rappe, Kraemer and Denzer was eighth in 4:05.61, by far Medford’s best time of the fall.

Rappe, a sophomore, was 10th in the 200-yard freestyle at 2:12.92, leading a trio of big time drops for Medford. Rappe cut 3.2 seconds off her previous best. Mackenzie Petersen was 15th at 2:20.78 and knocked off 4.43 seconds and Kassidy Koncel was 24th in 2:27.93 with a drop of 6.5 seconds.

“Kassidy had a really good drop and so did Tana,” Wilson said. “Mackenzie swam the 200 and that was only the third time she swam it this year. I think that’s kind of going to be her bread and butter. We kind of found it right at the end what was best for her. I’m glad we found it when we did.” Freshman Layla Petersen was 15th in the 100-yard butterfly at 1:12.31, dropping 2.36 seconds and freshman Jolie Steliga was 21st in the 50-yard freestyle at 28.85 seconds, shaving off 0.41 seconds. “For Jolie to drop into 28s in the 50, that’s hard to do, especially as a freshman,” Wilson said. “Layla did great in her fly. She has just been steadily dropping the whole year, so that was awesome to continue that.”

The 2022 season concluded with a second- place finish in the Great Northern Conference, a fourth-place sectional finish, a 6-2 dual-meet record and the majority of the roster set to come back next year.

“We’re super happy to have some representation at state,” Wilson said. “I think for next year it’s good to show that we have some talent still coming up. We’re going to lose Aiden and we’re going to lose Kirsten but we still have a lot of talent there and a lot of girls who were close. It’s good to see going forward.”