Apologies for getting around to this a day late, but the Badger Conference South -- one of the more competitive swim conferences in the state -- has a logjam at the top.
The jam-up comes courtesy of Madison Edgewood's narrow 86-84 victory over Milton Tuesday night at the Redhawks' pool. Combined with Milton's win earlier this season over Fort Atkinson, and Fort's own victory over Edgewood in December, the three teams now all stand 3-1 on the season with one dual-meet to go next week.
The previously mentioned match-ups between distance swimming standouts Chase Stephens of Edgewood and Jeff Maxwell didn't pan out, as Edgewood chose to put Stephens in the 50 and 100 free sprints. He won both (22.28 in the 50, a D2 season-fastest 48.16 in the 100), while Maxwell won the 200 (1:47.43) and 500 (a D2 season-best 4:44.49) frees. Edgewood's Drew teDuits added wins in the fly (52.57) and back (a D2 season-best 51.99) in a meet that saw a bunch of fast times.
Milton opened the meet strongly, with wins by its Maxwell-led medley relay (1:44.34), Maxwell in the 200 free, and Brandon Benson in the 200 IM (2:10.71). But Edgewood proved it's not just a two-man team, as Mark Vukich, Eric Wendorf and Eric Madsen all joined Stephens and teDuits on Edgewood's two winning free relays. Edgewood's first-place 400 free relay (3:22.67 -- a season-best for the Crusaders) clinched the win.
These two teams will go at it again this Saturday at the Hillmen Invitational in Platteville. And the Badger Conference South conference meet should be a real shoot-out -- the conference championship is awarded via a combination of points awarded for conference dual meets and the conference meet results. If all three first-place teams win their dual meets next week (Edgewood hosts Stoughton, Milton hosts Oregon, and Fort travels to Monona Grove), they'll be tied for points entering the conference meet, and the highest-finishing team among the three will take home the conference title. With four of the top-10 D2 teams in the state taking part (Fort is currently #4 in the latest WISCA poll, followed by Edgewood at #6, MG at #7, and Milton at #10), it should be a highly competitive -- and fast -- meet.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
I'm always hearing about Stephens and teDuits from Edgewood and of course Jeff Maxwell from Milton, but I don't know how Fort Atkinson gets ranked #4 in D2. They must have some fast guys, but I don't even know who they are. Any chance they drop the meet to MG (pretty strong) to make it a two-team race at the conference meet?
Fort's pretty darn good -- they have two really talented swimmers in Evan Hill and Wyatt Paull, both double state qualifiers last year (Hill was 6th in both his events, Paull 7th in both of his). Those two maybe aren't Stephens and teDuits, but they are quite good. They can put together two really solid relays with those two, plus a pretty good third relay. Fort's also added some real good freshman and sophomores to the mix (Avery Kan, Lee Hollman).
Fort-MG should be a pretty good meet (bias alert -- my son swims for MG). My guess is that Fort has a bit more depth right now than MG, but there should be some good races and good relays at that meet.
One more thing: the difference between Fort at #4 and, say, Milton at #10 is pretty minimal -- 67 points in the latest poll, spread out among seven teams. That's not much.
As for the Badger South conference meet, those are weighted toward teams with a lot of depth, because both A and B relays can score, and the meet is scored down to 16 places. Not sure who that favors right now, but Milton has flashed some solid depth in some of the bigger invites.
The match up between Fort and MG is going to come down to who can pick up 5th place points over a handful of individual events and who can pick up 3rds in the relay events. MG has shown faster times in both freestyle relays this year. I predict the 2 teams will finish within 5 points of each other, whichever one emerges the victor.
Have MG's 3rd swimmers or 2nd relays picked up points against anyone this year? This feels more like a 95-75 meet to me.
Post a Comment