Experienced swim crew expects no drop-off in pool in 2023

MEDFORD GIRLS SWIM PREVIEW

The first season under Medford’s new coaching duo of Morgan Wilson and assistant Markki Farmer went well last fall, resulting in a second-place finish in the Great Northern Conference’s girls swim standings, a fourth-place WIAA Division 2 sectional finish and two individual state meet qualifiers.

With most of that crew returning, the Raiders are aiming to make sure there is no drop-off in 2023.

The Raiders hit the pool for the first day of practice on Aug. 8 with 17 swimmers, 14 of whom have experience in the program and 11 of whom are juniors or seniors.

Though Aiden Denzer, a state qualifier in the 100-yard backstroke and 200yard individual medley, is one of the two losses to graduation, along with Kirsten Weix, the Raiders feel they have plenty of depth to work with when competition starts Saturday with Medford’s annual trip to the Menomonie Relays.

“They all kind of know what to expect, which is nice,” Wilson said of her experienced crew. “We have high expectations and we want them to do really well.

It’s good for them to be in there and give the younger girls a preview too, showing that hey, we’re going to be working really hard but at the end of the season it’s going to be worth it. If you work hard, you’re going to get that time drop.”

The Raiders have one of their largest senior groups in some time with six of them. The five-member junior group is led by Medford’s other returning state qualifier, Sydney Sperl, who also went to Waukesha with Denzer in the 200-yard individual medley, and the three sophomores all were solid contributors who earned letters as freshmen.

After Saturday’s meet, Medford has three more non-conference meets and the GNC opener before the end of August, including Tuesday’s sprint meet at Marshfield, a visit to a new dual-meet opponent, the Black River Falls Co-op, on Aug. 24 and a home meet with a typically-strong Merrill squad on Aug. 29. Medford starts GNC competition at Antigo on Aug. 31 and will end the regular season there with the conference championships on Oct. 20.

Wilson sees this team as being very versatile in terms of who can swim what events. It’s always good to know as a coach you can fill out each spot in a meet lineup. Fans and swimmers, however, can expect to see an always-changing lineup for most of the season as Wilson and Farmer figure out what the best lineup is for the conference and sectional meets.

“Last week we did a lot of technique and drill stuff and a lot of the girls looked very good,” Wilson said. “I think we’re going to have a lot that can swim all of the strokes again, like last year, which is always really nice. Especially in these first two weeks, we try to switch it up and see who can do what during our non-conference meets and then we take the rest of the season to really hammer out and figure where they’re going to be best at for the end of the season. It’s really nice not to be pigeon-holed into this person can only swim one specific event.

We really like to switch it up and keep everybody on their toes, girls included, of what are we swimming, and see what they can do.”

Sperl and seniors Colby Bergman and Kassidy Koncel said Monday they’re excited to be back to work.

“This year, I feel like people have more motivation,” Bergman said.

“I’ve definitely been missing it,” Koncel said.

“The first week was definitely better than last year.”

Bergman is one of those swimmers who swam nearly every event at some point last year, but her top event became the 500-yard freestyle, where she got under the six-minute mark at the Merrill sectional at 5:53.54. She said her individual goal is to keep lowering that time.

Breanna Kraemer and Jordyn Johnson return for their fourth years in the high school program. Johnson primarily did her work in freestyles and the 100yard breaststroke and, like pretty much every swimmer, was a key piece of several relay combinations. Kraemer scored well in the 100-yard backstroke and butterfly, along with her freestyle and relay work. Koncel is in her third year with the team and looking to continue setting new personal bests in her freestyle events. Paige Wilkins returns for her second year and Jackie Williams returns after a year away, bringing another versatile veteran into the mix.

“It will be fun having all of us seniors working together this year, and not having just two of us like it normally is,” Bergman said.

Sperl qualified for state with a sectional time of 2:22.36 and then lowered that to 2:19.16 at state, good for 13th place.

“I feel like there is a lot of pressure to make it again,” Sperl said. “But I think it’s good because it’ll help me keep working hard. State was really fun, but it was really scary. I’d never done that before. I didn’t really know what to expect, but it turned out good.”

Obviously her goal is to make it back, possibly in more than one event. As a medley swimmer, she is accomplished in all of the strokes. Chelsea Gebauer is another of Medford’s top juniors. She posted Medford’s fastest breaststroke time of 2022 at 1:13.67 at the sectional, had one of the team’s top butterfly times and nearly broke the minute mark in the 100-yard freestyle. Tana Rappe is back after contributing in several events last fall. Cadence Haenel made big improvements last last year in the 500-yard freestyle and freestyler Mackenzie Petersen returns for year three.

Adalyn Dittrich, Layla Petersen and Jolie Steliga are the returning sophomores. Petersen had a strong first year in the butterfly, Dittrich gave Medford some key backstroke points and Steliga filled backstroke and sprint freestyle roles.

Kodi Rappe, Chloe Pipkorn and Jayda Fryklund are this year’s freshmen. “Our senior and junior classes are really big and really strong,” Wilson said. “It’s really good to have some good role models for our younger girls. We don’t have quite as many younger girls. Our freshmen got into the pool last week and have been working really hard. They’re not complaining about anything, they’re just putting their heads down and going which is really nice to see because it can be intimidating to come into it. It’s nice that they’re putting in that work and they seem eager to get going.”

“They’re doing really good for having it being their first high school experience,” Sperl said of the freshmen.

Medford went 6-1 in 2022 in Great Northern Conference dual meets and 6-2 overall, losing to Merrill and Rhinelander. The Hodags finished fifth as a team at state. One of the Raiders’ goal is to give the Hodags a fight when they come to Medford on Sept. 7 and in the GNC meet late in the year.

“It’s a goal every year,” Bergman said. “We at least want to come close.”

“We’re going to try our best,” said Wilson, who feels another top-two finish in the GNC is Medford’s to lose. “Rhinelander is always a big powerhouse, but hopefully we can stick with them for the most part. We beat Merrill at sectionals, so I feel like that was a big booster. We’ll see how that non-conference meet goes right off the bat.

“We’re hoping to get some girls back to state, we’ll see how we do,” Wilson added. “I know Markki and I have high expectations and high goals. We just have to get the girls there. It’s only one week in. They’re just worried about how tough it is to start right now. But they’ll get there.”