Wisconsin swim fans have posted some videos of the state swim meet on YouTube. Here are a couple of the more noteworthy ones:
-- The terrific D1 500 free duel between Hartland-Arrowhead's Ryan Hansen and Madison Memorial's Michael Drives:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtNVNHN0N8Q
-- Wausau East's Josh Hall winning the D1 100 breaststroke; note how at the end, he seems to take off his water-clogged goggles:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byjsNEAx7vg&feature=related
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3 comments:
Who do you suppose will win the swimmer of the year award?
D1 candidates:
Drives of Memorial
Hansen of Arrowhead
Butler of New Berlin
Hall of Wausau East
Friede and Lentz of Sauk
Tough call...for me, Drives has a bit of an edge over Hansen, if only because he broke two state records (albiet finishing 2nd to Hansen in the 500), and led Memorial -- which I thought mid-season didn't look like a title contender -- to the state title. Hall deserves some notice, because to me he was really the spark that ignited WEast's great meet at state -- he pretty much single-handidly delivered the medley to WEast with one of the great individual relay legs I've seen. Friede and Lentz is almost a flip of the coin -- two individual state titles (T-1st for Friede), plus two state relay titles, which none of the other three could deliver. And Butler was the only D1 swimmer to win two individual titles, and he did so in pretty convincing fashion -- he had a terrific state meet. In the end, by a pretty thin margin, I'd have to go with Drives -- a new UW pool record, for gosh sakes, in the 200 free, plus one of only two in the history of the state to go sub-4:30 in the 500, and he had to be an absolute rock to keep Memorial in the chase for the title, and he was. I have a bias toward swimmers who help their teams to strong showings at state, so I'd go with Michael Drives.
In D2, it's something of a career award, but I'd go with Brandon O'Donnell. McFarland's three-peat owes a lot to O'Donnell, who has scored a ton of points at state for McFarland during its three-year title run. And, his 46.75 leadoff leg on the 400 free relay was the catalyst for McFarland smashing one of the stronger D2 records on the board; I wouldn't be surprised to see that record have some staying power. A great career capped, finally, by an individual win and two relay golds -- not a bad way to go out. Runner-ups: Heiser and Thoresen of McFarland, teDuits of Edgewood (his 50.96 winning back time is second all-time in D2 to an Olympian), and Cedarburg diver Will Mathee, who ended his diving career with a record at state of two gold medals, a 2nd-place silver, and a 3rd-place bronze.
my best candidate for this honor, swimmer of the year, is byron butler. he took two events at the state meet, which is unequalled by any other athlete at the event. he was up against some very good and talented swimmers and he won handily. his leadership took the new berlin team farther than it's gone in many years.
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