Tonight kicks off a big week of swimming, with a bunch of very good meets. Among them:
-- New Berlin hosts Shorewood tonight in a battle for Woodland Conference supremacy. The New Berlin co-op, which combines swimmers from both Eisenhower and West high schools, is ranked #6 among D1 teams in the lastest state coaches poll, while Shorewood -- which has been on a great run this month -- is ranked #2 among D2 teams. Shorewood beat out New Berlin for second place behind Brookfield at the invitational it hosted earlier this month.
-- In a big Div. 2 matchup, #3 Whitefish Bay travels to #7 Cedarburg tonight in a match-up of two of the North Shore Conference's top teams. The two D2 powers will see each other three times over the next 12 days -- this dual meet, Small School State and the conference swim meet -- before heading their separate ways for sectionals (WBay to Cudahy, Cedarburg to Plymouth).
-- Monona Grove hosts Fort Aktinson tonight in a key Badger South Conference meet. Fort, 3-1 in the conference and ranked #5 in D2, is trying to maintain its hold on 1st place in the South; the Blackhawks are currently tied with Madison Edgewood and Milton in a conference that has four teams ranked in the top 10 of D2. MG, 2-2 in the conference and ranked #9, looks to play the spoiler.
-- Plymouth visits Berlin/Green Lake in another big D2 contest tonight. Berlin/Green Lake is #6 in the lastet poll; Plymouth is #8. These two squads, along with Cedarburg, loom as the favorites for the Plymouth sectional title next month.
-- Marquette travels to Menomonee Falls Thursday to take on the Menomonee Falls/Germantown/Hamilton co-op in a contest between the two of the better squads in the Greater Metro Conference. Marquette is #12 in the last D1 state poll; MF/G/H is #18. A sure meet highlight: two of the top D1 divers in the state -- Nathan Cox of MF/G/H, the defending state champ, and Mike Donofrio, 4th last year -- will face off.
-- In a meet prompted by the Madison West Invite being moved from Jan. 30 to Jan. 2 because of a conflict with a UW swim meet at the Natatorium, Sauk Prairie/Wisconsin Heights hosts Verona/Mount Horeb in a rare weekend dual meet Saturday. The meet features two top-10 D1 teams, with Sauk #7 and Verona #8. But there are also all kinds of fun little sub-plots with this meet, chief among another chance for top sprinters Matt Friede of Sauk and Derek Toomey of Verona to knock heads again. They've had some very good and close battles already this year, and will certainly meet again at the Middleton sectional and the D1 state meet. Let's hope for decorum on the sidelines, as well, as it's brother against brother between the coaches Wuerger -- Bill's the head coach for Verona, Todd for Sauk.
-- Finally, Plymouth HS will host this year's Small School State Invitational Saturday in the biggest D2 meet of the year so far. Nine of the current top-10 D2 teams in the state (only Edgewood will be absent) and 15 of the top 17 small school teams in the state will be at the invite. McFarland won it last year, followed by Whitefish Bay. Look in particular for some terrific relay races this year.
UPDATE: Thanks for the anonymous poster who pointed out a big one I missed -- Brookfield Central/East vs. Waukesha South/Catholic Memorial at the fastest pool in Wisconsin (WSouth) this Thursday. Brookfield, #11 in the lastest state poll, takes on the newly minted #1 D1 team in the state in the Blackshirts. WS/CM is the favorite, but Brookfield's depth could make this a close dual meet.
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16 comments:
Hopefully we'll get to see some results for all of tonight's meets tomorrow sometime. Nice work with the site.
Brookfield vs. Waukesha South? Brookfield is a team that should be in the top 10 against the #1 ranked team in the state. This should be a far better Greater Metro Conference meet than Marquette and Menomonee Falls.
New Berlin 102 Shorewood 81
New Berlin won 10 events including all three relays.
Coach:
Congrats on a big win! Can you send me full results? I'll post them (PDF if possible). Send to:
wimcdade@tds.net
Edgewood won tonight
Cedarburg Upsets Whitefish Bay 93-90!
Fort Atkinson underwhelms in the relays but tops MG 93-77 w/ 6 individual event wins.
Coach Lutzke - somehow he gets it done year after year...good for the swimmers and simply inspires best effort... his success puzzles his collegues but is no secret to his athletes.
It could be the fact that New Berlin draws from around 1750 kids while a school like Shorewood draws from under 600. I am not putting down Coach Lutzke's accomplishments as a coach, as I have swam against him many times, but school size has something to do with continued sucess.
More school size vs. achievement facts:
This data is from the WIAA 2009-10 Directory;
NBE + NBW = 1624
Shorewood = 624
Greenfield/Greendale = 2060
BrookCent/BrookEast = 2684
WaukSO/CathMem = 2114
BrownDeer/UnivSch = 2114
WaukNo/KettleMor = 2742
WaukWest/Muk = 3210
The "size equals results" myth is not evident in these stats. More food for thought; private schools draw from a larger area than public schools. i.e. two of WaukSo/CathMem top swimmers live in New Berlin. School choice is evident in the senario as well.
I Might argue that socio economic status of the district plays an even greater role with swim team success. Are there any stats that show the number of minorities involved in swimming? Or golf? Or tennis? Sorry to lay a little guilt on the swim world but this observations speaks volumes about the sport of swimming rather than success and school enrollment.
All good points, although I would also throw into the mix:
-- McFarland is one of the smaller D2 schools for swimming, based on enrollment, and they don't seem to have too much trouble winning state titles lately on the boy's side. No question enrollment plays some role in having a pool of swimmers, but then you'd expect (to cite one example, not to pick on them) the Menomonee Falls/Germantown/Hamilton co-op (combined enrollment close to 5,0000 students) to be the best team in the state. A solid squad, but probably not a top-10 team in D1 this year. I'd argue tradition, coaching, and one or two other factors also play key roles. It's the reason the Randolph boys basketball team, or the Lodi and Mineral Point wrestling teams, can go beat most high schools teams in the state in those sports.
-- There is absolutely no question in my mind that swimming, and in particular the top-tier teams in the state, draws from a higher socio-economic pool of families than the state's school-aged population as a whole. It's the reality of high-level swimming -- most high schoolers competing at a high level have had several years of club swimming, and that's not cheap. And certainly there has been a lot written about this at a national level, and folks like Olympic gold medalist Cullen Jones and even Phelps have talked about the sport needing to reach youngsters that it hasn't in the past. But both Madison East girls and Madison Memorial boys and girls are among the state's top swim teams and draw from a very diverse student population (granted, most of their swimmers come out of the club swimming programs as well).
-- It's not just swimming. Look at the recent state success of football programs from Mequon Homestead, Hartland Arrowhead and Waunakee, all of which draw from a student/family population wealthier (much wealthier, if we're candid about it) than the state as a whole.
Actually, SB is considered a "poverty district" since 40%+ of their students are considered low income, as well as drawing from a combined student population (SD and SB) of approximately 600 to 700 students and look what they have managed to accomplish over the past 10 years.
Hey, I know! Let's all agree to have an "equalizing formula" based on team member socio-economic strata and school size to adjust the kids' times and school budgets to make things more "fair" - we could put some pseudointellectual in charge of the program - taking nominations for the job right here.
What a minute...Is it being suggested that they change the layout just because some swimmers have a better quality of life than the other? I don't know if we could do that
Pretty sure the comment by bad touch was made with his tongue firmly planted in his cheek!
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