Memorial dominates Big 8 conference meet

Madison Memorial affirmed its undefeated duel-meet season with a big win at the Big 8 conference meet at Middleton Saturday, winning 538-389 over the runner-up host team.

Senior Jackie Powell was a double-winner for the Spartans, taking the 100 backstroke (59.01) by 2-1/2 seconds, and setting a meet record in the 100 free (52.09). The Spartans also used their superior depth to rack up lots of points in the relays; when your B relay finishes third in the 200 free relay at a meet as strong as the Big 8 conference, you know you have a lot of depth. Memorial picked up wins in the 200 and 400 free relays, the latter in a thrilling match-up with the defending state champs, Madison East. Memorial edged East 3:36.67 to 3:36.86, with Powell anchoring her relay to victory.

East, not the deepest of teams, still performed quite well at the meet, getting wins from four-time state champ Aja Van Hout in meet-record times of 2:03.65 (200 IM) and 4:56.87 (500 free), and a meet-record time of 24.06 in the 50 free from Ivy Martin. The Purgolders also captured the 200 medley relay, edging Memorial by just over a second as Van Hout swam the breaststroke leg for East.

Madison West's third-place finish (296 points, 14 more than 4th-place Verona) was highlighted by junior Ilsa Feierabend, who continued her strong season with a win in the 200 free (1:55.76) and a runner-up finish in the 500 free (5:05.34.)

A few other observations from the meet:

-- If, as often happens, coaches use the conference meet to set up their lineups for sectional qualifying this coming Saturday, look for Powell in the 100 free and back for Memorial. She's the defending D1 state champion in the back and 200 free, but has been swimming a lot of 100 frees this season. Her conference-record win in the 100 free suggests strongly that's the freestyle event she'll focus on for sectionals.

-- Meanwhile, Van Hout certainly appears set for the two events in which she's captured titles her first two years at D1 state -- the IM and 500 free. The junior had been swimming a lot of 200 frees this year, leading to some speculation she might switch from the IM to the 200 free. But her IM time at conference certainly indicates she'll swim that at sectionals -- only Van Hout herself, last year at state (2:01.69), has swum a faster 200 IM in the past four years in state competition.

-- In what was a very fast meet, with five meet records in the 11 swimming events, Janesville Craig senior Hailey Schneider set the last one of the day in winning the 100 breaststroke in 1:05.93 -- not that far off from the time she swam last year (1:05.52) to finish 5th at state last year. She added a runner-up finish in the 200 IM (2:09.64) in a race that featured the top three finishers from last year's D1 state meet -- Van Hout, Schneider, and East's Becca Soderholm (who finished 3rd -- 2:11.38).

-- In the past two years, there has not been been a better match-up in relays than the 400 free relay battles between East and Memorial. Two years ago at state, Memorial topped East by 2-1/2 seconds, but East's second-place finish allowed it to clinch the state team title by a mere 3.5 points over Memorial. Last year, East turned the tables on Memorial at state, winning with a state-record time of 3:24.80. While Memorial can probably count on getting all three of its relays to state, East this year will probably focus on two relays, and the conference results suggest it will be the medley and 400 free relays for the Purgolders. With Memorial edging East by less than two-tenths of a second at the conference meet, it certainly sets up (in all probability) two more match-ups between the two powerful relays.