The much-anticipated duel meet between two of the state's best D1 teams -- Madison East and Memorial -- lived up to its billing: a packed house at East High School, television crews from the Madison TV stations, and some great swimming. It also went according to form: Memorial's superior depth trumped East's top-flight talent.
Details: Memorial won 93-77, giving the team its fourth straight Big 8 conference dual-meet title and 23rd overall. But East won 8 of the 11 events, and demonstrated why it will be a force at the state D1 meet. East stars Ruby Martin (swimming in her last home meet of her career), Becca Soderholm, and Aja Van Hout all won two individual events, and the trio combined with Ruby's sister Ivy to win both the 200 and 400 free relays. Van Hout continues to just dominate opponents this year; she swam a state-season best 1:52.31 in the 200 free, breaking her previous team record in the process, and then turned around for a 4:56.57 500 free, swimming alone for much of the race. (In the 200, she beat Memorial's Jackie Powell, holder of the state's third-best 200 free time this year and one of the state's best all-around swimmers, by nearly four seconds.) Soderholm was also impressive, winning both the 200 IM and the 100 fly quite easily over Memorial's Kelsie Saxe. Memorial won the medley relay by more than two seconds with a strong lineup (seniors Kayla Smith and Kendra Loch, along with Saxe and Powell), but East came back with wins in the freestyle relays.
In all candor, East looked like the sharper squad Wednesday night. Some of the times East swam were quite impressive -- Soderholm's fly time (58.71) was not that far off her 4th-place time last year at state (57.99) and her IM time was the third-fastest posted this year in the state, topped only by teammates Van Hout and Ruby Martin. East's 400-free relay time of of 3:32.78 was two seconds better than the next-fastest time posted this year, and came within .05 seconds of the team-record time set by East last year at state -- and left Memorial's 400 free relay behind by nearly four seconds at the conclusion of the duel meet.
Of course, there are three weeks left before the state D1 meet -- an enternity in the minds of most swim coaches aiming to get their swimmers to peak the right time. Memorial head coach Jason Verhelst in well-known for doing just that, and indicated that's his focus.
"Our primary goal is the state meet," he told the Wisconsin State Journal after the winning effort against East. "Everything we have done this year has been focused on that for our varsity girls."
Details here from the State Journal:
http://www.madison.com/wsj/home/sports/wiaa//310834
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