Turning black into gold: Waukesha S/CM wins Madison Invite

They are not the deepest of teams, and they didn't win a single event Saturday afternoon. But the Waukesha South/Catholic Memorial Blackshirts proved that quality counts most, as they came away with a 5-1/2 point victory over defending Div. 1 state champs Madison Memorial at the Madison Invite at the UW Natatorium.

The Blackshirts, one of the few Milwaukee-area teams to take part in the meet, placed all three of their relays in the top four, and had swimmers finish in the top 8 in all but one event to emerge with the close victory. It was a back-and-forth fight for the top spot all afternoon between Waukesha S/CM and Memorial, and with two events to go, the Blackshirts held the slimmest of leads -- a half-point. But breaststrokers Collin Neitzel, Eric Oberst, and Derrick Rendon came away with 32 points in the event, to 18 for Memorial's top three breaststrokers, and the Blackshirts' 4th-place finish in the meet-ending 400 free relay sealed the win, much to the delight of the small but vocal Blackshirt fan contingent.

In the end, Waukesha S/CM scored 297.5 points to 292 for Memorial. Verona/Mount Horeb finished in 3rd with 228.5, with host team Madison West in 4th with 210 and Marquette in 5th with 198. The meet featured 15 teams, down from previous years, when the meet was held later in January. It was moved to Jan. 2 -- with most schools still on holiday break -- because of a UW collegiate swim meet later this month. Still, it was a good test, as most of the Madison-area D1 teams took part.

The Blackshirts don't have a dominant swimmer, just a bunch of very good ones. Neitzel led the way for the team Saturday with a 2nd place in the 200 IM to go with his 3rd in the breastroke; he added solid relays legs on the medley and 400 free relays. But notable for Waukesha S/CM was the performance of freshman sprinter Alex Swain. In a meet featuring lots of good sprinters, Swain finished T-4th in the 50 free and 5th in the 100 free, and led off his team's 3rd-place 200 free relay and 4th-place 400 free relay. The Blackshirts feature a nice cast of versatile swimmers, but Swain's emergence as a top sprinter gives the team a lot of flexibility in putting together three solid relays come sectional and state meet time.

Waukesha S/CM's performance also suggests the Waukesha South sectional this year will be one of the key ones to watch this year. Besides the host school, Hartland Arrowhead and New Berlin West/Eisenhower will make the sectional one of the most competitive in the D1 field this year. Look for some fast sectional qualifying times out of that sectional this year.

Other meet highlights:

-- One of the best -- and most entertaining -- rivalries developing this year is between Sauk Prairie/Wisconsin Heights' Matt Friede and Verona/Mount Horeb's Derek Toomey. The two senior sprinters are near-carbon copies -- long and lean swimmers, with tremendous reaches on their freestyle strokes. They've been posting some of the fastest sprint times of the year in D1, and Saturday they had two terrific races. In the 50 free, Toomey got a tremendous jump off the starting gun, and held the lead going into the turn. But Friede closes extremely well, and at the flags with just a few yards to go, pulled slightly ahead. He touched out in 21.40, just ahead of Toomey's 21.49. It looked like a repeat in the 100 free, as Toomey again got the jump off the start and held a slight .15 second lead at the 50-yard mark. As the two headed for the finish after the last turn, it looked like Friede would pull off another come-from-behind win. But Toomey somehow found just enough to hold him off, his winning time of 47.46 just ahead of Friede's 47.48. As the two glanced up at the scoreboard to see the outcome, they each let out a smile and quickly slapped hands. These two will see each other again at the Middleton sectionals and presumably state. (And it's worth noting that the freestyle sprints in D1 are looking like some of the best potential races at the state meet -- besides Friede and Toomey, the 50 and/or 100 sprints will likely feature Wausau East's Danny Brebrick, New Berlin's Alex Rodenkirk, and the Greenfield/Greendale duo of Jack Lennertz and Mike Lucchesi.)

-- Memorial's Michael Drives continues to make the very good look fairly routine, as he swam to two easy victories in the 200 IM and 500 free. With chief rival Tyler Lentz opting to swim the 200 free at the meet, Drives easily won the IM by more than seven-and-a-half seconds (1:56.18) over Neitzel. He then came back to post a 4.43.22 win in the 500 free -- well off his meet-record time from last year of 4:34.22, but a solid mid-season time nonetheless. Look for Drives to swim these two events at sectionals and state this year.

-- Madison Edgewood's Drew teDuits was the meet's other double winner, taking his speciality the backstroke in 52.98, and coming out on top in the fly with a 51.49. In the latter race, he outdueled Madison East's Robert Miner is a rematch of a terrific summer race between the two at the Madison All-City Meet, which Miner won by seven-hundreths of a second. Will teDuits opt for the fly at sectionals this year? With two of the top three D2 finishers in the fly graduated, including last year's state champ, the field is somewhat open in the event. A mid-season time of 51.49 is argument enough to at least consider it -- it's faster by a second-and-a-half than any time posted in the fly this year in D2.

-- Madison West always seems to have good breaststrokers, and the host team displayed its strength once again in the event Saturday, as the team's top breaststrokers -- Peter Faecke, Will Elsas, and Jesse O'Keefe -- finished 2nd, 4th, and 6th.

-- In an early-morning terrific duel in front of, oh, a dozen or so fans, two of the best divers in the state faced off, with Monona Grove's Trevor Sisson edging Marquette's Mike Donofrio 387 to 386.70 (which, in swimming terms, is roughly equivalent to winning a 500 free by a tenth of a second.) With his win, Sisson stamped himself as the favorite for the D2 state diving title; he was third last year. Donofrio, 4th last year at D1 state after leading the competition at one point, certainly didn't hurt his case to be one of the top contenders for the D1 title this year.

UPDATE: Results here...

Mad Invite 2010 Results