D1 state meet recap

In a meet that was both predictable -- and not -- here's what happened that was predictable at the D1 state meet Saturday:

-- Hartland Arrowhead won the title, its seventh in eight years, with a 122-point margin;
-- Madison East's Aja Van Hout won two events, and set another state record;
-- Four swimmers defended their individual titles from a year ago, as did one relay.
-- Madison West's Kyle Rosenstock won her fourth straight state diving title.

Here's what was not:

-- Two swimmers came out of the second heat -- not the last, fast heat -- to claim individual titles. When was the last time that happened?
-- Madison East, competing with all of four swimmers (and thus only two relays), claimed its second consecutive runner-up trophy, to go along with its state championship trophy from 2007.
-- Waukesha South/Mukwonago and Muskego, seeded to finish 2nd and 3rd in the meet (51 and 45 points, respectively, ahead of East), both fell down in the standings, finishing third and fourth.

For Arrowhead, the meet was the conclusion of a dominating season which saw the team win every meet it entered. For right now, Arrowhead boasts a very deep and talented pool of swimmers that the rest of the D1 field simply can't match.

"Nothing's ever easy," Warhawks coach Jennifer Leider told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "It's hard to kind of approach it that way, but we knew we had a lot more weapons on this year's team coming in."

You could tell it was going to be an Arrowhead night right from the start, as its 200 medley relay won in a terrific battle with the last two teams to win the medley at state -- Madison East and Badger/Big Foot/Williams Bay. The Warhawks were trailing after the first two legs on the relay, but then junior Emma Goral jumped in the pool, and all was put right for Arrowhead. The two-time defending champ in the 100 butterfly split a 24.95 fly leg, giving anchor swimmer Haley Pietila a lead she never gave up.

Goral came back later in the meet to claim her third straight title in the fly -- her 55.27 is the 4th-fastest in the event. Out of the water, Goral is a pretty unassuming-looking swimmer, but in the water, she's a superb technician who gets a better push off the wall than any butterfier in the state.

"I made sure to nail my turns, I had a great start and I just concentrated on me - on what I was doing - and I knew I'd come away with the win," Goral told the Milwaukee paper. "I'm really looking forward to next year. I'm going to get back to training hard and hopefully I can get that state record (54.55) next year finally."

As for Van Hout, she electrified the crowd with her win in the 200 IM, her time of 2:00.06 breaking the previous state record of Arrowhead's Andrea Boritzke (2:01.39) by well over a second. Van Hout then came back with a win in the 500 free, in a race where she had to hold off a game Brittany Walsh of Muskego. Van Hout never trailed in the race, but she could never shake Walsh, and with 150 yards it was no sure thing that Van Hout would win her third straight 500 (Walsh at one point in the race had four consecutive 50 splits faster than Van Hout). But Van Hout held on, her winning time of 5:51.77 3+ seconds slower than her record time last year, but still second all-time in D1 state history. Walsh was second in 4:52.84 (nearly exactly what she swam a year ago when she also finished second.)

As for the rest of the meet:

Performance of the meet: A tie between Madison Memorial senior Jackie Powell in the 100 free and Madison East's Ivy Martin in the 50 free. Both came out of the slower, second heat to claim a state title -- Powell with a 50.82 in the 100 free that easily won the title over Pietila (51.51). Powell had shown earlier in the meet she would be a force in the 100, as she powered her way past Pietila at the halfway point of the 200 free and finished out in 1:49.90 to win by nearly 2-1/2 seconds. Martin followed up on the success of her sister, Ruby -- who won the 50 free the past two years -- as she won with a 23.55 that Wisconsin Rapids' junior Becca Weiland (23.66) couldn't quite match in the final heat.

Race of the meet: Another tie, this one between the 100 breaststroke and the meet-ending 400 free relay. The highly anticipated 100 breaststroke shoot-out lived up to its advance billing, with two-time defending champion Emily Russart of Badger/Big Foot (1:02.53) holding off Eau Claire Memorial freshman Leah Pronschinske (1:02.94). Russart set a state record, breaking her own mark (1:02.70) she set two years ago, while Pronschinske became only the second breaststroker in state history to go under 1:03 in the event. Pronschinske is wonderful-looking breaststroker, with a smooth stroke and a rapid turnover. In truth, she might have been just slightly faster than Russart in the water. But Russart, the taller of the two, got terrific pushes off the wall on all three of her turns, and her powerful underwater pull off her start gave her a lead in the race she never gave up.

As for Madison East's 400 free relay, the team's performance sealed their second straight runner-up trophy. East, Muskego, and Waukesha South/Mukwonago were within 6 points of each other entering the relay, and with all three teams in the final heat, the runner-up trophy was up for grabs. Standing in everyone's way was Arrowhead, which came in with the fastest seed time and featured Goral and three of the team's top sprinters.

Conventional wisdom for relays suggests spreading out your fastest swimmers, going with your second-fastest swimmer on the lead-off leg and saving your fastest swimmer for the anchor leg. But East coach Matt Matteson turned that on its head, putting out Van Hout and Martin on the first two legs. Van Hout's lead-off leg of 49.94 would've won the 100 free, and Martin then helped extend the lead. That left it to the Soderholm sisters -- sophomore Chelsea and senior Becca -- to hold on to the lead. Becca Soderholm entered the pool for the anchor leg with about a one-second lead, and with 50 yards to go, it looked like Arrowhead anchor Julia Mikota was on her way to overtaking her and giving Arrowhead its third relay title of the meet. But Soderholm dug in, and as the crowd rose to its feet, the two swimmers battled for the lead. In the end, Soderholm and East held on -- not by much (four-tenths of a second) -- but enough to elicit a scream and a jig on the pool deck from the East relay, and the runner-up trophy that arrived in their hands a few minutes later. A great ending to a very good meet.

Swimmer of the meet: One more tie, between Arrowhead's Goral and East's Van Hout. Both ended up with three gold medals and a silver medal for their day's work. Maybe Van Hout gets a slight edge for her record-breaking swim in the 200 IM, but Goral is Arrowhead's rock. In a meet that featured some inconsistent swims by the Arrowhead team, Goral proved as reliable as Old Faithful, with a win in the fly and great relay legs. Wisconsin swim fans have the good fortune of getting to watch these two swimmers for one more year.