Burning questions -- Div. 1 state

More questions, Div. 1 bracket:

-- Can anything top last year's D1 meet? Maybe this year's. Last year's state title, you may recall, came down to the last lap of the last heat of the last race, and centered on four teams: Defending champs Madison Memorial, Hartland-Arrowhead, Sauk Prairie/Wisconsin Heights, and Badger Big Foot. Memorial would've won the title by finishing first in the relay, or two places ahead of HA. Arrowhead's only hope was to either beat Memorial, or finish right behind them (assuming Memorial didn't win the relay). Arrowhead raced out to an early lead, only to see Memorial claw back into the race and take the lead with 25 yards to go. But Badger Big Foot's Wes Lagerhausen swam a remarkable anchor leg, and touched out Memorial for the win. Still, it looked like the Spartans had the title in the bag, as Sauk had edged out Arrowhead for 3rd place in the relay. But then the scoreboard revealed a DQ on third-place Sauk, moving Arrowhead up from third to second place in the race. The extra two points gave Arrowhead the state title. This year, four teams -- Memorial and Arrowhead again, along with Marquette and New Berlin -- are seeded within 29 points of each other. Memorial and Arrowhead are the deeper of the two teams, but Marquette brings two divers to the meet (Memorial has one diver; New Berlin and HA don't have divers), as well as the 1st seed in the meet-ending 400 free relay. Expect a tight contest throughout the day.

-- Will the Michael Drives-Ryan Hansen shoot-outs decide the Div. 1 team title? Maybe. The pair -- Drives from Memorial, Hansen of Arrowhead -- will square off in both the 200 and 500 frees, and have created as much pre-meet buzz as any races this year. Hansen is the defending state champ and the #1 seed in the 500, having posted an astonishing 4:31.20 at sectionals, a time more than a second faster than the current D1 record. Drives is the #3 seed, but earlier this season at the Natatorium posted a 4:34.22 in the 500. Hansen is also the #1 seed in the 200 free, with Drives #2. Look for the winner of the 200 free to be under 1:40; will the magical 4:30 barrier be broken at a state meet for the first time in the 500? Don't bet against it. Arrowhead, seeded 20 points behind Memorial, certainly needs Hansen to hold his seed placements and win both events to make their case for a second state title in a row. Drives can put a major dent in those plans should he emerge the winner. These promise to be two terrific races.

-- Just how good are Arrowhead's 500 free swimmers? Teams are restricted to 18 individual entries for the nine events in the meet; Arrowhead chose to use five of those on its 500 free swimmers, and remarkably all of them qualified for state. Brent Schreibel got the last spot as the 24th seed, while Matt Ahern and Chris Jenkyns -- son of Arrowhead coach Bob -- will swim in the second heat. Hansen is joined by freshman phenom Jake Prodoehl in the final heat. The 500 free is a race in which swimmers can dramatically drop time, and thus move up and into scoring position. If Arrowhead gets a big showing out of its quintent of 500 swimmers, the team could have a big day.

-- Who will win two other potentially first-rate duels -- the 100 butterfly and the 100 breaststroke? In the fly, defending state champ Byron Butler of New Berlin will match up against Greenfield-Greendale's Jack Lennertz. Both enter the meet as the only swimmers with sub-50 second seed times -- Lennertz #1 with a 49.78 and Butler with a 49.97. Flying runs in the Lennertz family; sister Jenna was a four-time D2 state champ in the 100 fly while swimming for Greendale. The state record in the event is one of the most respected in the state -- 47.71 by Kyle Bubolz of Waukesha North/Kettle Moraine. Perhaps one or both swimmers will take a run at it. Meanwhile, Wausau East's Josh Hall and Waukesha South/Catholic Memoria's Colin Neitzel are set for a rematch in the 100 breaststroke. Last year, Hall entered as the top seed, only to see Neitzel grab an early lead and never give it up. They enter the meet against as the top two seeds, with Hall holding a slim .05 seconds edge over his rival (58.04 to 58.09). It might not just be a duel between these two, either; three other swimmers come in with seed times under 59 seconds.

-- Will the times from the very fast Waukesha South sectional hold up at state? Or, to put it more bluntly, is it the pool or the competition? Last week, the Waukesha South sectional was clearly the fastest in the state, and sent more swimmers to state than any other sectional (13 in the 500 free alone). It's clearly a reflection of the deep talent pool in suburban Milwaukee that swims at that sectional. But there is some speculation is swimming circles that the Waukesha South pool -- known to be a very fast pool -- may even be faster than the UW Natatorium, and thus the sectional seed times coming out of the Waukesha South pool are tough to match at state. To cite one example, last fall the top three teams based on seed times for the girls state meet -- Hartland-Arrowhead, Waukesha South/Mukwonago, and Muskego -- came out of the Waukesha South sectional. Yet all three schools lost points from their seeded totals once they swam at the Nat, with Waukesha South/Mukwonago losing nearly 70 points from the seeds. Tapered too soon? Better tapers by swimmers and teams seeded behind them? Or just a very fast pool? It's hard to tell, and probably unknowable. But it will be interesting to watch how the Waukesha South sectional swimmers do overall -- seven of the 11 #1 seeds in the state meet came from there.

-- Can Carlos Rios bring home a diving title to Milwaukee Riverside, and the Milwaukee City League? Not known for its swimming and diving prowess, the City League last had a state diving champion more than half-a-century ago, when Don Hapka won it in 1950 for Milwaukee Tech (now known as Bradley Tech). Rios enters the state dive meet as the #3 seed; he finished 5th last year, with only Marquette's Michael Donofrio (seeded 4th this year) a returning diver who finished ahead of him (Donofrio finished fourth last year). #1 seed Nathan Cox of Meno. Falls/Germantown/Hamilton, eighth last year, and #2 seed Nick Badilla of Appleton North/East, a state qualifier last year, also figure to be in the mix.