ANOTHER DOMINANT GNC WIN
MEDFORD GIRLS SWIMMING
Raiders look forward to meet with Tridents
The Great Northern Conference records said Thursday’s Parents’ Night swim meet would be a pivotal one midway through the league season, but the Medford Raiders showed they were clearly superior in a 119-51 win over Colby-Abbotsford.
The Hornets came into the meet at 3-0 in GNC duals, but their matchup with the Raiders was their first against one of the teams expected to finish in the upper tier of the final standings. Medford won 10 of 11 events drew even with Colby-Abbotsford and the Ladysmith Co-op at 3-1, good for second place behind undefeated Rhinelander.
As luck would have it, Medford is off to Ladysmith tonight, Thursday, to, in all likelihood, settle second place for the dual-meet portion of this fall’s schedule.
“It’s always really nice,” Medford head coach Morgan Wilson said of getting contributions from the entire roster on Parents’ Night. “We still are switching some girls up. We are trying to solidify what we want them to swim coming up especially next week with Ladysmith. That’s going to be our closest meet. They’ve always been our equal. It’s hard when you just put a girl in an event and she does really well.”
One example of that, according to Wilson, was freshman Adalyn Dittrich, who swam the 500-yard freestyle for the first time and took fourth place in 6:43.44. “That was the first time she’s ever swam the 500 and that was a really good time for her to get below seven minutes. That’s awesome. It makes it tough on us to figure out where we want swimmers, but it’s a good problem to have.”
Speaking of the 500-yard freestyle, it was won by junior Colby Bergman, who finished in 6:06.08 and seems to be settling in as Medford’s top option in that race.
“She always tells us, ‘I could’ve gone faster,’” Wilson said. “We’re waiting for that. She did go significantly faster this week. She dropped over 10 seconds. She swam a 6:18 last week. So that’s awesome. We want her to get under that six-minute mark and keep going from there. She’ll get there.”
Tana Rappe, a sophomore, also had a good swim in that race, taking second in 6:20.86, cutting about nine seconds from her only other 500 of the fall.
With the mid-meet break in between, Sydney Sperl won two consecutive races, the 50-yard freestyle and the 100yard butterfly. Her 50 time was 27.92 seconds, putting her 1.5 seconds ahead of Colby-Abbotsford’s Jordan Jakel. Erica Brandner (29.53) and Jolie Steliga (30.09) were third and fourth for the Raiders. In the butterfly, Sperl finished in 1:11.64 to edge Jakel by 1.35 seconds. Brandner was third in 1:18.03 and Layla Petersen was fourth in 1:20.02, showing just some of Medford’s depth in that event.
“That’s another fun problem to have,” Wilson said. “It’s nice to put in any girls and know they’re still going to be able to compete. Butterfly is a really hard stroke. To be able to have a couple girls that can swim it and swim it well is really nice.”
Senior Aiden Denzer got a pair of wins. The first came in the 200-yard individual medley at 2:28.13, a seasonbest time that beat Colby-Abbotsford’s Madisyn Schraufnagel by 4.64 seconds. Rappe took third in 2:47.04 and Layla Petersen was fourth at 2:50.16, which was a personal best. Denzer pulled away and won the 100-yard backstroke in 1:09.16, a 3.09-second margin over Chloe Cihlar.
Bergman was third for Medford in 1:12.47 and Cadance Haenel was fourth in 1:29.68 while swimming the event for the first time this fall.
The meet featured some of the closest races Medford has had in GNC competition and one of those was in the 100-yard breaststroke where Chelsea Gebauer finished in 1:19.15 to clip Colby-Abbotsford’s Brezlyn Boyer by 1.73 seconds. Jordyn Johnson almost took second, finishing in 1:21.8 to fall 1.08 seconds behind Boyer. Kirsten Weix was fourth at 1:33.6, a season-best time.
Johnson did beat Boyer in the 200yard freestyle, winning it by 6.46 seconds in 2:21.39. Breanna Kraemer was third for Medford in 2:29.89 and Haenel was fourth at 2:43.38. Gebauer was second in the 100-yard freestyle at 1:00.1, 0.74 seconds behind Cihlar. Weix (1:08.27) and Kassidy Koncel (1:10.45) were third and fourth.
The closest relay race was the 200-yard medley relay. Denzer, Gebauer, Sperl and Rappe beat Colby-Abby’s top team by 1.05 seconds with a time of 2:04.59. Kraemer, Johnson, Brandner and Bergman got the two third-place points at 2:12.37, while Mackenzie Petersen, Dittrich, Koncel and Steliga were fourth in 2:32.1.
“Colby has a really nice team. They have some nice swimmers,” Wilson said. “I was happy that our girls were able to pull it off in the end in a lot of races. It’s a tribute to our girls working hard on those finishes at practice. Some of them didn’t go our way, so it’s just another thing we
Medford’s Tana Rappe pushes through the butterfly portion of the 200-yard individual medley, where she placed third in 2:47.04 during the Raiders’ 119-51 win over Colby-Abbotsford Thursday.
can always keep improving upon.”
Brandner, Weix, Johnson and Gebauer won the 200-yard freestyle relay in 1:57.91, while teammates Kraemer, Mackenzie Petersen, Steliga and Layla Petersen were second in 2:00.3, 1.27 seconds ahead of Colby-Abby’s top team. Paige Wilkins, Haenel, Koncel and Dittrich were fourth at 2:18.86. Sperl, Bergman, Rappe and Denzer finished the meet by winning the 400-yard freestyle relay in 4:19.44. Kraemer, Koncel, Mackenzie Petersen and Weix took third in 4:32.55, just 1.43 seconds out of second place. Dittrich, Haenel, Layla Petersen and Steliga were fourth at 4:55.07.
Mackenzie Petersen added a win in the JV 50-yard freestyle at 31.44 seconds.
Tonight’s meet in Ladysmith starts at 5:30 p.m. Medford hosts a very thin Lakeland team Oct. 6.
“It’s homecoming this week,” Wilson said of tonight’s matchup. “That’s always an interesting time with a lot of distractions. Hopefully the girls buckle in. They want to get a homecoming win even if we’re not at home for it.”
