MEDFORD GIRLS SWIM PREVIEW - Experience, depth should keep Raider girls afloat in GNC

MEDFORD GIRLS SWIM PREVIEW

Whether it can challenge Rhinelander for the top spot in the Great Northern Conference remains to be seen, but Medford’s girls swim team appears to have the talent and depth needed to keep it atop the list of teams with the best chance to do so.

Coming off a third straight 6-1 season in GNC dual meets, Medford will open its 2024 season at Saturday’s Menomonie Relays with 12 returning swimmers from a year ago, including a core group of five seniors and three juniors. The big change is at the top where an entirely new staff of head coach Sam Klinner and assistants Oralee Dittrich and Mandy Haenel is looking to bring some fresh ideas to the pool while maintaining the program’s success.

“It was a very different (first week) than what we’ re used to, that’s for sure,” senior Cadance Haenel said Monday.

“I think it’s a good different. I’m excited,” Tana Rappe said.

The swimmers dove in to their first official practice on Aug. 13 and will have a busy first week of competition, traveling to Menomonie for Saturday’s relay meet and to Merrill Tuesday for the fall’s first dual before hosting Marshfield Aug. 29 at 5:30 p.m. in the home opener at the MASH pool. The pool has been improved with new flooring and an easy-toread scoreboard that hopefully won’t have the meet-day glitches that were common with the previous system.

“I think it went OK,” Klinner said of the first week. “We definitely learned what we had. I think it’s kind of a top-heavy team. We have a lot of juniors and seniors and a couple of freshmen and sophomores that are just climbing the ropes and learning everything right now.”

“Lots of good team rapport and building,” Dittrich said. “They made a lot of connections and that was great.”

“I feel like too they are very connected,” Mandy Haenel said. “The team is pretty cohesive. That’s what the seniors wanted when we met with them first, they wanted more team bonding, wanted to be a team.”

The five returning seniors are Haenel, Rappe, Mackenzie Petersen, Chelsea Gebauer and Sydney Sperl, the lone swimmer in the program with WIAA state experience. Sperl was 15th in the Division 2 individual medley state race after qualifying in both the medley and 13th as a sophomore.

Gebauer has been one of Medford’s top swimmers throughout her high school career. While the 100-yard breaststroke has been her top event, she’s competed in all of them at one time or another, just like Sperl. Haenel came on in the second half of last year in the 500-yard freestyle, Petersen has been a valuable freestyler and relay piece and Rappe has contributed in a variety of roles when healthy in her time as a Raider.

While Sperl has individual goals to return to state, and rightly so, the first goal she has for 2024 is team-oriented.

“I’m hoping we can get a relay to state this year,” Sperl said. “I want to make it back again. I feel like I’ve barely made it both years so I hope I can place better than I have before. Maybe make it in another event so I’m not just swimming in one event and then leaving because that’s kind of boring. I hope a relay goes. I don’t like when it’s just me.”

The seniors said they are excited for this Saturday’s meet as it’s always a fun opportunity to swim in unique events and to bond with teammates by mixing and matching relay groups.

“It’s my favorite meet,” Sperl said. “I look forward to it every year.”

Adalyn Dittrich, Layla Petersen and Jolie Steliga are the returning juniors. Dittrich nearly broke the six-minute barrier in the 500yard freestyle last year and gave the Raiders some strong 100-yard backstroke times. Petersen turned in Medford’s second-best 100yard butterfly time of 2023 behind Sperl and Steliga earned points in the shorter freestyles and relays.

“The most amazing thing about this team is that they’re really, really diversified,” Klinner said. “Almost all of the swimmers can do multiple strokes.”

Medford also gets a key addition to this core group this year as Chiara D’Arienzo, an exchange student from Italy, was impressive during the first week of practice.

“She’s fast,” Klinner said.

The younger portion of the roster looking to find their roles includes returning sophomores Kodi Rappe, Jayda Fryklund and Chloe Pipkorn. Rappe, in particular, has a strong first year in the program competing in a variety of events, including getting to a solid time of 2:30.15 in the 200-yard individual medley by season’s end.

This year’s newcomers include sophomore Autumn Venzke, who returns to the sport after stepping away for a couple of years and the freshman crew of Sophie Sperl, Tori Nicks, Aliyah Galan, Elizabeth Bartnik and Mata Decker. Sperl was a state qualifier in multiple events this spring at the club level, while Nicks, Galan and Bartnik also come in with club and middle school experience. Decker is new to the sport, but the coaches said she is picking things up quickly.

“We did some stroke drills and technique work just to try to get a couple things cleaned up and actually just talked with them individually about little things they can do to clean up their strokes,” Klinner said of the first week. “It went pretty quick and pretty easy. We’re going to be doing a lot more of that this week. We have relays this Saturday so we just kinda want to get them physically ready for that and make sure that they understand what’s going to be going on this weekend.”

While the girls will certainly continue to put in yards in practice, Klinner had a couple of changes in mind upon his hiring in May. Chief among those was to create more of an emphasis on speed and to try to bring elements of fun to the pool.

“We’re going to try to make it a little more fun,” he said. “I think the biggest thing I’m going to try to do is pay a little more attention to the people that need the help. I think the seniors know the drill. They just have to swim. We really, really need to focus on the freshmen and the sophomores and get some stuff cleaned up in their strokes. Even from the beginning of the last week to the end was pretty amazing.”

“The things he’s changing up, the girls maybe don’t know it now, but I think it’s going to be a game changer for some of them,” Mandy Haenel said.

“There’s fun but there’s work,” Oralee Dittrich said. “Their dryland workouts haven’t been easy. They’re challenging.”

In the GNC, Rhinelander is not only the defending conference champion, the Hodags are the defending WIAA Division 2 state champions. They lost two standouts in Karis Francis and Abi Winnicki but remain pretty stacked. Medford is at Rhinelander on Sept. 19. The Ladysmith Co-op and Colby-Abbotsford were both over .500 in league duals last year.

The seniors left no doubt they expect this to be a solid squad once again.

“I’m hoping we can beat Rhinelander, or at least make it a little closer,” Mackenzie Petersen said.

“In all of our years, we’ve been told we’re the only ones that give them a competition,” Cadance Haenel said.

Cadance Haenel, one of five returning seniors on Medford’s girls swim team, puts in some freestyle yards during the team’s first practice on Aug. 13. Medford starts its new season Saturday at the Menomonie Relays. MATT FREY/THE STAR NEWS