GNC GIRLS SWIM CHAMPIONSHIPS - Swimmers put stranglehold on 2nd, look ahead to sectional

GNC GIRLS SWIM CHAMPIONSHIPS

Led by three honorable mention award winners, the Medford Raiders finished off another strong girls swim season in the Great Northern Conference with their fourth straight second-place finish in the league meet, this time held Friday at Colby-Abbotsford.

The Raiders weren’t challenged for the second spot, scoring 267.5 points to easily outscore Colby-Abbotsford (173) and Lakeland (151). Rhinelander’s powerhouse program continued to dominate. The Hodags scored 415 points with the Raiders making a little bit of a dent this year after Rhinelander had a 190-point margin of victory in last year’s meet.

Medford opened the meet with a thirdplace finish from its 200-yard medley relay team of Chiara D’Arienzo, Chelsea Gebauer, Layla Petersen and Kodi Rappe, good for the first All-GNC honorable mention award of the night. Gebauer got the last one in the 100-yard breaststroke, her second straight honorable mention finish in that race, and junior Adalyn Dittrich added one in the 500-yard freestyle.

The medley relay team lowered its time by 0.62 seconds to 1:59.32 for its best time of the year. The Raiders were just 0.59 seconds behind Rhinelander’s B team. The Hodags’ top team won in 1:51.16.

Medford’s B team of Dittrich, Tori Nicks, Sydney Sperl and Cadance Haenel was eighth in 2:10.73.

Dittrich’s third-place finish in the 500 came with a personal-best time of 5:50.4 that beat her best mark of this year by 3.7 seconds. She held D’Arienzo for the third spot. In just her second 500 of the season, D’Arienzo was fourth in 5:55.37. Sophomore Jayda Fryklund added a personal-best time of 6:21.32 that took ninth. Her previous best was 6:26.99. Lakeland’s Olivia Mickle won the GNC title at 5:32.36, while Rhinelander’s Emma Houg was second at 5:45.93.

Gebauer, a senior, held off Colby-Abbotsford’s Brezlyn Boyer by 0.94 seconds to earn the honorable mention spot in the 100-yard breaststroke. Gebauer posted a time of 1:17.34, which was 0.18 seconds off her best of the fall. Rhinelander’s Ella Heck (1:10.21) and Lily Thorsen (1:12.9) were the top two finishers in the race. Swimming it for the first time this fall, Medford sophomore Autumn Venzke was 14th at 1:36.48.

D’Arienzo added a fifth-place finish in the 200-yard individual medley with her best time of the season, 2:26.36, while Petersen was eighth at 2:38.14, her best time of the fall. D’Arienzo was 3.33 seconds away from a GNC award. Dittrich led a trio of Raiders in the 100-yard backstroke with a seventh-place time of 1:08.98, another personal-best. Sperl was eighth at 1:11.02 and Fryklund was ninth in 1:15.01.

Gebauer added more individual points in the 50-yard freestyle. Kodi Rappe tied Antigo’s Chloe Tainter for fourth place at 26.76 seconds. They were just 0.08 seconds out of the third spot that was claimed by Rhinelander’s Camilla Gruett. Gebauer was sixth at 27.38 seconds and senior Cadance Haenel was 11th at 29.97 seconds. Rhinelander’s Vivian Lamers won in 25.36 seconds.

Rappe got under the one-minute mark for the first time in the 100-yard freestyle as she was clocked at 59.13 seconds, a half-second behind third-place swimmer Kiley Pooch of Rhinelander. Senior Tana Rappe was seventh in a seasonbest 1:03.89, senior Mackenzie Petersen was ninth in a personal-best 1:04.32 and Haenel was right at her season-best while taking 12th at 1:05.53.

Medford also scored well in the 200yard freestyle relay with teams placing fourth and fifth. Earning 11 fourth-place points were Gebauer, Haenel, Tana Rappe and Kodi Rappe in 1:51.06, while Nicks, Mackenzie Petersen, Fryklund and Dittrich got 10 fifth-place points at 1:58.07. Venzke, Elizabeth Bartnik, Chloe Pipkorn and Aliyah Galan were 13th for Medford at 2:14.62. Rhinelander (1:43.6) and Colby-Abbotsford (1:48.57) had the top two teams, while Medford was 2.21 seconds behind third-place Antigo.

Sydney Sperl, Tana Rappe, Layla Petersen and D’Arienzo closed out the meet with a fourth-place time of 4:02.31 in the 400-yard freestyle relay, 0.82 seconds behind third-place Lakeland. Rhinelander had the top two teams. Fryklund, Galan, Mackenzie Petersen and Nicks took seventh in 4:24.69.

Layla Petersen was fifth in the 100-yard butterfly in 1:08.3, her best time of the fall, and Sperl was seventh at 1:10.21. Tana Rappe was fifth in the 200-yard freestyle with her season-best time of 2:16.59, just ahead of Mackenzie Petersen’s sixth-place time of 2:20.42. Nicks was eighth at 2:22.37.

Antigo was fifth in Friday’s team standings with 128.5 points, ahead of the Ladysmith Co-op (96), Tomahawk (56) and Mosinee (13).

All of the GNC teams will take two weeks to fine tune and finish tapering as they look ahead to the Nov. 9 WIAA Division 2 sectional meet at Menomonie. There, all event champions will punch automatic tickets to the Nov. 15 state meet at Waukesha South. The top 12 nonwinning times in each event statewide will earn berths at state as well.