Wilson takes over a team eager to maintain recent success

MEDFORD GIRLS SWIM PREVIEW

The Medford Raiders have just two seniors, but they open the 2022 girls swim season with a team that’s more experienced than it appears, it’s just deep enough to fill the lineup card for Great Northern Conference duals and it features the flexibility coaches love to have in those meets where every point may matter.

Morgan Wilson and Markki Farmer are those head and assistant coaches this fall, following the off-season resignation of Betsy Meinel, who left after seven solid seasons with the program.

Wilson moves up to the head job after three years as an assistant. She is a 2013 Medford graduate and was a Raider swimmer in her high school years. Farmer went to state in 2016 and remains Medford’s record holder in the 50-yard freestyle at 25.11 seconds.

“It’s definitely different being in charge versus just being the assistant but I’m definitely liking it so far,” Wilson said as the team concluded practice Monday morning with a dryland workout. “I’m glad I was around for three years. Betsy had a great thing going, so we just want to keep that strong and continue to compete at a high level. We really want our girls to improve every week and become the best swimmers they can be. That’s our main goal is for them to be the best they can be.”

The two senior captains, Aiden Denzer and Kirsten Weix, agreed that it’s been so far, so good through the first week of practice, leading up to Saturday’s season opening Menomonie Relays.

“It’s different because it’s not Betsy,” Denzer said. “We’ve had Betsy throughout high school. But Morgan is doing a good job of making it fun. There have been a lot of smiles in practice which is good to see.”

“It’s fun but we’re still getting work done,” Weix said. “She’s still pushing us in practice.”

“We worked a lot on our technique,” Wilson said. “A lot of the girls have very strong technique, which is great. We don’t have to work on too many of those things, so now this week we can just jump in and get right to the hard stuff.”

The Raiders are 16 swimmers strong to start 2022, down a couple from last year, but nothing Medford won’t be able to work through, assuming health re- mains on the team’s side.

After the two seniors, Medford’s ros- ter features five juniors, four of whom are in their third years with the team, six returning sophomores and three fresh- men, all of whom have some competitive swimming experience.

Saturday’s meet at Menomonie and Tuesday’s Marshfield Chase the Tiger Sprints will give the coaches their first glances to see what they have and who might fit where. But through one week, it’s obvious to the coaches and the se- niors that the Raiders will be able to mix and match however they see fit from meet to meet.

“A lot of our girls can swim a lot of different strokes, which is awesome,” Wilson said. “It gives us some flexibility so they won’t be stuck in one thing the whole year. That’s why we’re really ex- cited for the meets on Saturday and next week Tuesday. We’ll get some girls into different things and see what they can do in a race. It’s a lot different being at prac- tice versus a competition and our girls are really excited. Last week they all said they were really pumped. So that’s good. We hope they bring it and show us some good stuff.”

“Everybody can fit into everything,” Weix said. “Everyone pretty much swims a legal stroke.”

Weix has primarily filled a freestyle role with the Raiders but has the ability to swim any stroke. She figures to fill a role in the longer distances. She ended last year as a solid scorer in the 500-yard freestyle. Denzer also has swam in just about every event as a Raider with the 200-- yard individual medley being her likely go-to event. Denzer is the lone Raider with state expe- rience having raced on the 2020 200-yard med- ley team that holds the school record at 1:53.41. “They’ve been around and are super solid,” Wil- son said. “They can swim everything. Kirsten real- ly focuses on 500, long dis- tance, but we can put her in anything if we need to. Aiden swims IM, swims breaststroke. They have good leadership skills. They definitely have high expectations for the girls, which is nice to have them realize we have to work hard and we have to time of last year at 1:10.3 at the sectional and got some shots at the 100-yard butterfl y as well. Jordyn Johnson had Medford’s second-best 500-yard freestyle time at the Menomonie sectional at 6:14.54 and swam the 100-yard breaststroke at times. As a newcomer last year, Kassidy Koncel lowered her freestyle times considerably as the season went on. Paige Wilkins is this year’s newcomer as a junior.

In the strong sophomore class, Sydney Sperl returns after emerging as the team’s top entrant last year in the 100-yard butterfly. She lowered her time by about five seconds from the start of last year to the end, finishing at 1:10.4 at the sectional, and swam in the 200-yard individual medley several times. Chelsea Gebauer had a solid first year, primarily in the 100-yard breaststroke where she won several races. Tana Rappe had the team’s best backstroke time of the year at 1:05.78 at the sectional.

Erica Brandner added depth in the butterfly in her freshman year, while Haenel and Petersen primarily filled freestyle and relay roles.

This year’s freshmen trying to find where they fit in the lineup are Adalyn Dittrich, Jolie Steliga and Layla Petersen.

“We can definitely fill a pretty good lineup and still have some flexibility to switch some girls around,” Wilson said. “I think last year we had 17 or 18 girls, so we’re pretty much in that same area. I think we are going to see some girls in different events to start the year just to see how we can get our best lineup ready for the later meets, like conference and sectionals, and see where they’re going to thrive and do their best.”

The Raiders were 6-1 in GNC duals last fall, losing only to a powerhouse Rhinelander squad that finished second at the WIAA Division 2 state championships, and were sixth out of 13 teams at the Menomonie sectional. Unfortunately, the Raiders were shut out from the state meet. The seniors say getting some Raider representation back there is an obvious goal. This year’s state meet is at Waukesha South High School for the third straight year. Merrill was recently announced as this year’s sectional site The Great Northern Conference championship meet is Oct. 28 at Tomahawk. Medford will visit Rhinelander early in the year on Sept. 8. Later in the fall, Medford has GNC rivalry meets at Ladysmith on Sept. 29 and at home against Lakeland on Oct. 6. “I’d like to see us get to state,” Denzer said. “I’d really like to see that. Top five in sectionals would be cool. Maybe see a school record broken.” “Whether it’d be individual or a couple of relays, I hope to do really well at sectionals,” Weix said. “There are a couple records up there that we think we could be pretty close to.” “It depends on how much work they’re willing to put in,” Wilson said. “We need to make sure we stay strong the whole season. Even when we’re tired we need to keep good technique and really focus on our starts, turns and finishes. In a tight race, that’s either going to be your achilles heel or that’s going to be what gets you the win. So we’re really focusing these first couple weeks on hammering down good habits and breaking any bad habits we might have to make sure during that race, especially when it comes to the big time races, you don’t revert back to doing something sloppy.”