2009 boys swim season recap

The old saying -- the more things change, the more they stay the same -- might've applied to this year's high school boys swim season. Madison Memorial got back to winning state titles after a one-year hiatus in D1, and McFarland won its third straight state title in D2 and appears poised for another run at the top.

Highlights:

-- Certainly the D1 500 free final at the state meet was the best race of the year -- two great swimmers in Memorial's Michael Drives and Hartland-Arrowhead's Ryan Hansen going at each other for the full 500 yards, well ahead of the rest of the field. It's rare for a front-runner to get overtaken in the late stretches of a race and then summon the will to come back; Hansen did just that in a terrific display of talent and guts. Both swimmers became the first in state history to go under 4:30 seconds in the 500, with Hansen's 4:28.98 topping Drives by exactly one second. Hansen is headed off to the University of Utah to continue his swim career; Drives returns for his senior year, where he'll surely want to take aim at the new 500 record. Will there be anyone of Hansen's caliber to push Drives beyond it?

-- The entire D1 state meet was a crazy affair, with winners coming out of the second heat, a tie for a gold medal, and non-traditional swim powers like Sauk Prairie-Wisconsin Heights and Wausau East giving the big-name programs all they could handle in the race for the state title. It demonstrated that the boys swim talent in D1 was spread throughout the state this year. In particular, it's heartening to see programs like the New Berlin co-op, Greenfield-Greendale, and Hartford emerge as strong teams to go along with the traditional Milwaukee-area powers of Arrowhead, Marquette and Homestead. And keep an eye on the Appleton North/East co-op, which finished 7th at state with a solid group of young swimmers.

-- If the Hansen/Drives 500 was the race of the year, the relay of the year was the D2 400 free relay, won by McFarland in record time. The race was essentially over after the first leg by senior Brandon O'Donnell, but the Spartans were chasing one of the best records on the D2 board, set by the oustanding 2005 Sturgeon Bay/Southern Door squad that was the best in state history. The Spartans -- O'Donnell was joined by his brother Ryan along with Brian Heiser and Graham Thoresen -- swam the relay virutally alone, but that didn't stop them from smashing the record by more than two seconds with a 3:07.84 that was just three-tenths of a second off the D1 record. Close races, of course, are fun to watch -- but equally exciting can be a group of athletes, at the absolute peak of their training and preparation, pulling off a difficult task. It was fun to watch.

-- Kudos to Cedarburg's Will Mathee, who entered the D2 diving championship as the defending champ but second-seeded to Plymouth's Mitchell Spaeth. Mathee won his second straight title, fending off a late charge by Spaeth, and ended his career with two gold medals, a silver for 2nd place in his sophomore year, and a bronze from his third-place finish as a freshman. Ryan Jefferson of Edgewood, with four state titles and the current record-holder, will long be the standard-bearer for D2 diving, but Mathee had a terrific career capped by his second win.

As for next year, can the two state team title winners repeat? Memorial returns Drives, plus the emerging Patrick Franken, who came on late in the year as one of the best freshmen in the state, and Ben Anderson, another solid freshmen. But they will have to replace a bevy of seniors, including diver Nate Broadbridge (2nd at state), who contributed points at the state meet. Runner-up Sauk Prairie/Wisconsin Heights graduates Tyler Evans, a mainstay of their relays, but returns Matt Friede and Tyler Lentz, maybe the best one-two punch in the state. Sauk isn't the deepest squad around, but what they have is very, very good. Wausau East and Marquette graduate most of their top swimmers, but Arrowhead -- aside from Hansen -- returns a good share of its state team that finished 5th. Appleton North/East, Greenfield/Greendale, Neenah and Verona also return squads with solid state meet experience.

In D2, McFarland graduates state meet vets Brandon O'Donnell and Thoresen, but returns nine other swimmers who qualified in 13 individual events at state, led by 200 free champ Heiser. And some of those swimmers only swam one event at sectionals, as McFarland bumped up against its 18-entry limit. In a word, they are loaded -- thanks to this year's terrific freshman class, which had five swimmers qualify for state. If anyone can give McFarland a run, it's probably state runner-up Whitefish Bay, which has finished 2nd or 3rd at state eight of the past 10 years, but always shy of 1st place. WB returns a very strong group of swimmers, almost all of them seniors with a lot of state meet experience, and will likely be pumped up for a run at the title. Madison Edgewood and Shorewood, which tied for 4th at state, also return strong groups of swimmers.

One other big question looms before next year -- what about all those fast suits? International and state swim federations are looking closely at suit technology, with some in the swim community speculating some of them may be banned soon. If so, will qualifying times for the state meets, and records at the meets (three fell in D1 -- although two swimmers surpassed the 500 free record, and three teams surpassed the 200 free relay -- and one fell in D2, and a few others were quite close in both divisions), continue to fall? Is it the swimmers getting better and faster, or are the suits responsible? Stay tuned...