Four C/A swimmers advance to state
By Nathaniel Underwood
For the third straight season, the Colby/ Abbotsford swim team will be sending swimmers to compete at the WIAA Division 2 state meet after putting together a pair of top-16 performances in the state at their sectional meet in Menomonie last Saturday. The team as a whole took seventh out of 14 teams, scoring a total of 144.5 points.
Chloe Cihlar, Madisyn Schraufnagel, Jordan Jakel and Brezyln Boyer will represent the co-op in the pool in Waukesha this coming Friday after putting together some of their best performances of the year at the sectional meet. The quartet qualified in the 200-yard freestyle relay, which they earned second team all-conference honors for two weeks prior while Schraufnagel punched her ticket earlier in the day in the 200-yard individual medley.
It will be the third trip to the state meet for Schraufnagel and the second for Cihlar and Boyer. Jakel served as the reserve for the relay last season. Schraufnagel competed in the 100-yard backstroke the past two seasons and the 200-yard IM in 2023. She also joined Cihlar and Boyer on the 400-yard freestyle relay last year.
The relay team secured the 16th and final spot on Saturday, taking fifth in a highly competitive race at the Menomonie sectional. The squad took nearly two seconds off their seed time of 1:48.57 to finish with a time of 1:46.86. This put them just behind the Antigo team that they had narrowly defeated at the Great Northern Conference and ahead of Wausau East by 1.3 seconds. The relay secured their spot by defeating the Plymouth relay from the Ashwaubenon sectional by less than eighttenths of a second.
Meanwhile, Schraufnagel posted a new season best in the 200-yard IM, beating out her time at last year’s sectional meet by five-hundredths of a second. She finished with a time of 2:18.40 to take sixth place, just eight-hundredths of a second behind Rhinelander’s Emma Houg. Her time was the 13th best across the state sectionals.
The co-op very nearly secured two more spots on Saturday, finishing 18th in the state in both the 200-yard medley relay and the 100-yard backstroke. The same team of Schraufnagel, Boyer, Jakel and Cihlar took sixth at the sectional meet with a time of 1:59.69 in the 200-yard medley relay. The fifth-place Medford relay was the last team out, their time of 1:57.50 just five-hundredths of a second slower than the final state qualifier Merrill, which took fourth on Saturday.
Schraufnagel also tied with Rhinelander’s Houg in the 100-yard backstroke with a time of 1:02.52. Both of them earned sixth place in the sectional and were two spots short of qualifying for state.
Jakel grabbed a seventh place finish for
See SECTIONAL SWIMMING/ Page 10
PUSHING FOR STATE - Madisyn Schraufnagel makes her move in the butterfly portion of the 200-yard IM at the sectional meet. She qualified for the state meet after taking sixth place in Menomonie.
JEREMY MAYO/NORTHWOODS RIVER NEWS
HEADED BACK TO WAUKESHA - Chloe Cihlar celebrates with her teammates after completing the final leg of the 200-yard freestyle relay. The Colby/ Abby relay took fifth in the sectional meet.
JEREMY MAYO/NORTHWOODS RIVER NEWS Swimming sectionals
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the co-op in the 100-yard butterfly, cutting a second and a half off her seed time to finish in 1:06.68. Boyer had a ninth place finish in the 100-yard breaststroke with a time of 1:19.59 and a 10th place finish in the 100-yard freestyle with a time of 1:00.55. Cihlar’s ninth place finish in the 50-yard freestyle rounded out the top-10 individual finishes for the co-op, putting together a 26.50 second performance.
The 400-yard freestyle relay team of Cihlar, Jakel, Hazel Flink and Ella Baumann also grabbed a top-10 finish with a time of 4:15.26.
Other top-20 Colby/Abby performances included a 12th place finish for Baumann in the 200-yard freestyle with a time of 2:17.97, a 14th place finish for Sage Lueth in the 100-yard breaststroke with a time of 1:24.22 and a 17th place finish for Flink in the 100-yard butterfly with a time of 1:14.33.
The Division 2 WIAA state swim meet will be held on Friday, November 15 at the Waukesha South Natatorium. The doors for swimming spectators will open at 4:30 p.m. and the competition is set to begin at 5:30 p.m.
