Barracuda Invite: Arrowhead tops Mad. Memorial

In one of the first big meets of the boys season, Hartland Arrowhead topped defending Div. 1 state champs Madison Memorial at the Barracuda Invitational at Brookfield East High School Wednesday night.

Arrowhead swam to a 497-444 victory over the Spartans as the two teams dominated the six-team invite. Brookfield finished 3rd with 305.5 points, followed by Middleton (286.5), Marquette (274), and Brookfield Academy (143).

Arrowhead won the meet with a strong display of team depth (in a meet that counted only one relay for points, but allowed 30+ individual entries per team). Arrowhead also picked up 29 points in diving to to 14 for Memorial. Memorial won two relays to one for Arrowhead, and each team won three individual events. Arrowhead, 4th last year at the state meet after having won four state titles this decade, will certainly get a motivational boost from beating the defending state champs.

Leading the way for HA was senior Chris Jenkyns, who took the 500 (4:52.86), was 2nd in the back (54.51), and led off his team's winning medley relay. Also winning for HA: sophomore Jake Prodoehl in the very fast 200 free (1:46.48) and junior Brent Schreibel in the breaststroke (1:02.83 -- a commanding win by 1.4 seconds).

For Memorial, senior Michael Drives took the 200 IM in a state-leading 1:56.53 (his winning margin was more than six seconds) and the 100 free in 48.22. Sophomore Ben Anderson added a win in the 50 free (22.53) by a clear half-second -- a pretty big margin for the shortest race of the meet.

Other meet highlights:

-- As mentioned, the 200 free was a terrific race, with Prodoehl edging a solid field that saw five swimmers go under 1:51. Interestingly, the first three finishers in the race were sophomores -- Prodoehl was followed to the wall by Marquette's Lucas Kuriga (1:47.67) and Memorial's Patrick Franken (1:48.23).

-- The 500 free/200 free relay is always a tough double to pull off, as the events fall back-to-back on the swim schedule and differ so dramatically. But Franken, an emerging star for the Memorial Spartans, pulled it off with aplomb, as he finished second to Jenkyns in the 500 free (4:58.86), then turned around right away to anchor Memorial's winning 200 free relay (1:31.21).
The host Brookfield team squeezed in between Memorial and HA for 2nd-place in the 200 free relay with a time of 1:31.73.

-- Brookfield Academy's super twosome of juniors Jack Donovan and Jonathan Marks had solid performances -- Donovan won the fly (53.38) and added a 5th in the 200 free (1:50.87), while Marks garnered a 3rd in the breaststroke (1:05.51) and a 4th in the IM (2:06.18).

-- Marquette senior Michael Donofrio dominated the competition in diving, winning by more than 60 points with a score of 424.70. Donofrio led the state diving competition at one point during last year's meet before falling to 4th; he's one of the favorites to take the D1 state diving crown this year.

-- Watch out for Memorial's 400 free relay; the quartet of Franken, Michael Salerno, Anderson and Drives has the look of a very good relay, and their winning time of 3:17.08 (more than three seconds over runner-up HA) is solid for this time of the season. With a meet on the line and the outcome hanging on the 400 free relay, Drives isn't a bad guy to have anchoring.

(Thanks to Barracuda Invite meet manager Chad Knutson for forwarding results.)

UPDATE: Results here...
Barracuda Invite Meet Results