C/A swim eyes more accolades in 2024

By Nathaniel Underwood

Coming off a successful 2023 season in which they sent swimmers to the state competition in two events and took fourth in the Great Northern Conference, the Colby/Abby swim team will head into the new season with similarly high goals. With most of their varsity athletes returning from last season, the co-op squad appears well set to continue to build on their accomplishments over the last few years.

While the Colby/Abby team will be short Olivia Krause and Zeline Lintrup from last year’s team many of their core performers will be returning again.

Senior Chloe Cihlar and juniors Madisyn Schraufnagel, Brezlyn Boyer and Jordan Jakel will all be looking to head back to state after making the trip to the state meet in Waukesha last season.

Schraufnagel is the current school record holder in the 100yard backstroke and the 200-yard IM after breaking both at the sectional meet in Merrill last season, performances that earned her a second trip to the state meet. Both records had held for over two decades before Schraufnagel set the new time to beat. She took 11th in the 100-yard backstroke and 14th in the 200-yard IM at the state meet.

Cihlar, Boyer, Schraufnagel and Lintrup also qualified for the state in the 400-yard freestyle relay with Jakel serving as the alternate. The team placed 15th in Waukesha. Cihlar, Schraufnagel, Boyer and Jakel also teamed up to nearly qualify for state in another relay last season, missing out on a spot in the 200-yard IM by just four-tenths of a second.

“We have a good, strong core to this team,” head coach Monica Tesmer said. “The group that went to state last year are back and they’re excited to swim. They have goals set, high goals and I think they will do well.”

The quartet of upperclassmen are poised to continue as the core of a Colby/Abby squad that will continue to fight in the top half of the Great Northern Conference. They finished fourth last season behind Rhinelander, Medford and Ladysmith.

The team will be in a similar position as the last two seasons, where they have been right on the cusp of having enough members to field at least two entries in each event in a standard varsity dual meet. It’s a familiar challenge for both the athletes and coaches and one that they were able to navigate with relative success last season.

“With our numbers, we have a chance of winning meets,” Tesmer added. “When it comes to a meet, yes it’s great to break personal records, but to win that meet you need numbers to fill those lanes. So I’m excited about that, we’re in that swing where we are coming up and we missed third by only one meet last year. Hopefully we do well in the conference and I think that will boost confidence when you can win meets.”

McKinley Meyer, Sage Lueth, Hazel Flink and Bryleigh Boyer also return from last year’s varsity squad and will provide important depth for the co-op.

“We have some strong fillers as well,” Tesmer said. “Bryleigh is really working and she’s right there, and Sage as well, they are both strong in all four strokes and I can put them in the IM, or anything. McKinley is a senior this year and she is the person that’s always putting in the support for whatever we need. You need that glue and she’s it. I can always say, ‘can you swim this?’ and she’s always ready and we can put her in.”

The early schedule may be the biggest challenge for the team to overcome in the opening weeks of the season. Because of how the calendar falls this year, the team has needed to have shorter practices for the first week, which could have an effect on conditioning and endurance to start the year.

“We couldn’t really do conditioning the first week because, with the school having in-service the same week, we could only have two hour practices,” Tesmer said. “We lost eight hours of practice in that first week and then school starts already so we can’t make it up. I’ve had a routine for the beginning of the season where it’s like, ‘this works, this is what we do,’ and we’ve had to make a lot of changes. We’ll be okay, but we’ve had to revamp everything. We did ha ve four girls swim club over the summer, which helps too.”

The co-op will get to see where they are at with the annual pentathlon that they host on Wednesday, August 21. This event, while it runs differently than a typical meet, helps Colby/ Abby coaching staff see where their athletes might be at and allows them to swim events that they might not normally compete in. There will not be much time for analysis, however, as the co-op will be back in action the following day, August 22, when they travel to Merrill for a meet featuring 12 other teams, including some familiar GNC foes. The pentathlon will start at 2 p.m. while the Merrill meet begins at 5 p.m.

Their first conference dual is scheduled for Thursday, September 5, when the co-op will travel to Ladysmith to take on the Trident swim team. With Rhinelander entrenched in the top spot and Medford solidly in second place, the two squads battled for third place in the GNC, with Ladysmith’s depth narrowly giving them an advantage both in their head to head dual and giving them a few more points at the conference meet. Like Colby/Abby, Trident featured plenty of juniors and sophomores last season, so another close meet could be in play for the co-op’s 2024 conference opener. The dual is scheduled for a 5:30 p.m. start.

2024 COLBY/ABBOTSFORD SWIM TEAM - This year’s 2024 Colby/Abby swim team is, in the back row, left to right, Bryleigh Boyer, Hannah Brehm, Hazel Flink, Sage Lueth, Chloe Cihlar, Ella Baumann, and McKinley Meyer. In the front row, from left to right are Brezlyn Boyer, Madisyn Schraufnagel, Jordan Jakel and Kate Sheahan. The co-op is coached by Monica Tesmer.

STAFF PHOTO/NATHANIEL UNDERWOOD