Swimmers can’t quite catch Tigers, start strong at Menomonie

MEDFORD GIRLS SWIMMING

The Medford Raiders got wins in two events Tuesday while falling just behind host Marshfield in the annual Chase the Tiger sprint swim meet.

The four-team meet featured a tight battle for the championship between the top three squads with Marshfield hanging on for the championship with 231 points, six ahead of Medford and 11 better than Merrill. Colby-Abbotsford was fourth with 153 points.

Medford head coach Morgan Wilson said the team wasn’t quite as sharp Tuesday as it was in Saturday’s Menomonie Relays and that cost them.

“After a strong showing on Saturday, we hit a couple of hiccups in Marshfield,” she said. “I think the girls were still riding the wave of performing well and taking second there that they lost focus a little bit. Hopefully this will be a good lesson that the girls need to bring it every time no matter how well they did the week before. We did see some decent things out of our freshmen and have some more times to build upon.”

For the second straight meet, Medford was a winner in an 8x50 400-yard relay. This time with four swimmers taking two rounds, the team of Jackie Williams, Breanna Kraemer, Colby Bergman and Jolie Steliga finished in 3:53.56 to comfortably finish ahead of second-place Colby-Abbotsford (4:07.96).

The other win for Medford came in the 100-yard freestyle relay where Tana Rappe, Kraemer, Adalyn Dittrich and Bergman won easily in 55.85 seconds. Medford’s team of Cadance Haenel, Jayda Fryklund, Kassidy Janda and Williams actually took second in 58.71 seconds, but points were only awarded to one team from each school in relays.

The Raiders got third in two relays. The 200-yard medley team of Kraemer, Chelsea Gebauer, Sydney Sperl and Bergman finished in 2:04.52 to trail Marshfield (2:01.21) and Colby-Abbotsford (2:01.65). Medford’s team of Dittrich, Williams, Layla Petersen and Steliga had the fourth-best time at 2:12.42 and Chloe Pipkorn, Paige Wilkins, Janda and Mackenzie Petersen were seventh in 2:30.82. Kodi Rappe, Tana Rappe, Janda and Mackenzie Petersen swam the 100yard medley relay in 1:07.63 to beat Colby- Abbotsford by 6.67 seconds and trail Marshfield (1:00.89) and Merrill (1:03.25). Pipkorn, Wilkins, Haenel and Fryklund were sixth in 1:11.48.

In another relay, the 200-yard freestyle, Medford’s team of Layla Petersen, Dittrich, Steliga and Kodi Rappe took fourth in 2:00.2, while Mackenzie Petersen, Wilkins, Pipkorn and Haenel were fifth in 2:09.44. Merrill won in 1:52.44.

Individually, Gebauer led Medford with two second-place swims. She swam the 50-yard freestyle in 27.41 seconds to fall just 0.45 seconds behind winner Ireland Moran of Merrill and 0.06 seconds ahead of Colby-Abbotsford’s Chloe Cihlar. Steliga was sixth in 29.28 seconds and Mackenzie Petersen was eighth in 31.48 seconds.

Gebauer’s time in the 50-yard breaststroke was 34.43 seconds, just 0.53 seconds behind Marshfield’s Brooke Begotka and 2.26 seconds ahead of third-place swimmer Olivia Pajtash of Merrill. Williams added a seventh-place time of 40.82 seconds and Wilkins was 10th in 44.33 seconds.

Sperl was third in the 100-yard individual medley and fourth in the 50-yard butterfly. Her medley time was 1:09.2, not far behind winner Marissa Miles of Merrill. Kodi Rappe was eighth in 1:15.38 and Layla Petersen was ninth at 1:17.29. Sperl swam the butterfly in 30.06 seconds, while Bergman (32.65) and Layla Petersen (34.75) weren’t far behind in sixth and seventh places. Begotka won in 27.57 seconds.

Tana Rappe got 10 third-place points in the 100-yard freestyle, finishing in 1:06.34. Haenel was fifth in 1:09.68 and Fryklund was ninth in 1:13.9 in a race won by Merrill’s Baliee Sommer in 1:01.21. Kraemer (32.76) and Dittrich (34.31) were fourth and fifth for Medford in the 50-yard backstroke, while Janda added four seventhplace points at 38.59 seconds. Moran won in 29.09 seconds.

Fryklund beat five Marshfield swimmers to win the JV 50-yard freestyle. Medford’s freshman finished in 31.53 seconds and won by 2.39 seconds.

Medford is right back at it tonight, Thursday, with the first dual meet of the season. It’s at Black River Falls. Medford’s home opener is Tuesday against Merrill at 5:30 p.m., followed by the Great Northern Conference opener at Antigo on Aug. 31.

“We’ll be focusing on ‘the little things’ that make a big difference in races such as starts/exchanges and finishes,” Wilson said. “We’re excited to start off our duals (Thursday) and see the girls in regular events and see where we can go from there.”

2nd at Menomonie

Medford dove into the new season with a fine second-place performance in Saturday’s seven-team Menomonie Relays. That was the highest Medford has finished in that annual meet since 2014, when that Raider team gave Medford its third runner-up finish in four years.

This time, the Raiders scored 374 points to only trail La Crosse Central-Logan (488). Eau Claire North was third with 336 points, followed by Wisconsin Rapids (332), the Black River Falls Co-op (304), Menomonie (266) and Marshfield (234).

“This was a solid meet for everyone,” Wilson said. “For our freshmen, it’s a nice way for them to be introduced to high school swimming. For our older girls, it’s a great time to brush off the cobwebs and get back into competition. We saw some really good things from everyone.”

The Raiders got one win, earning that in the final race of the day, the 8x50 400yard freestyle relay. They added three second-place finishes and three thirds to pile up the majority of their points.

The 400-yard win was a team effort by Mackenzie Petersen, Williams, Kraemer, Bergman, Tana Rappe, Kodi Rappe, Gebauer and Sydney Sperl. Their sprints resulted in a time of 3:52.79 that beat the La Crosse co-op’s team by 0.36 seconds in an exciting finish. Eau Claire North was a distant third at 4:12.64.

Just before that, Medford nearly won another sprint race, finishing 0.17 seconds behind Marshfield in the 100yard freestyle relay. Haenel, Pipkorn, Fryklund and Steliga combined for a time of 53.16 seconds that easily beat third-place Wisconsin Rapids by 0.95 seconds.

The 200-yard butterfly team of Gebauer, Kodi Rappe, Bergman and Sperl took second in 2:02.82, trailing the La Crosse team by 3.06 seconds. They were well ahead of third-place Eau Claire North (2:13.01). Kraemer, Gebauer, Sperl and Bergman earned a solid opening time of 2:01.89 in the 200-yard medley relay that put them 3.19 seconds behind the winning team from Marshfield and 0.52 seconds ahead of the third-place La Crosse team.

Medford scored well in the longer races too. The 500-yard crescendo freestyle combination of Mackenzie Petersen, Kraemer, Tana Rappe and Dittrich took third in 5:47.42, trailing Rapids (5:26.93) and Central-Logan (5:27.12), while the team of Fryklund, Wilkins, Haenel and Janda added seventh-place points at 6:35.12. The 800-yard freestyle team of Dittrich, Janda, Haenel and Tana Rappe took third out of four teams in its time of 10:02.71, trailing Central-Logan (8:59.32) and Black River Falls (9:30.64) while beating Menomonie (11:09.43).

The 200-yard backstroke team of Bergman, Williams, Dittrich and Kraemer got third in 2:14.07, not far behind Marshfield (2:02.78) and Central-Logan (2:06.64).

Williams, Kodi Rappe and Sperl took fourth in the 300-yard individual medley relay at 3:36.54, while Wilkins, Tana Rappe, Kodi Rappe and Gebauer were furth in the 200-yard breaststroke relay at 2:42.53.

In the more conventional 200-yard freestyle relay, the team of Mackenzie Petersen, Williams, Steliga and Dittrich placed fourth in 2:00.71 and Wilkins, Pipkorn, Fryklund and Haenel were seventh in 2:11.99.

“Chelsea, Sydney, Colby and Ady had some impressive times to start the season,” Wilson said. “We still have some things to tweak and work on like our exchanges and kicking off turns. But overall, we were happy with how the girls raced. They came in with a lot of positive energy and it showed. This was a really great starting point for the season.”