Hartland Arrowhead continued to stake a claim on being the top Div. 1 team in the state, coming away with a dominant win at the Metro Swim Officials Invite at Mequon Homestead HS Tuesday.
It's the second big invitational win for HA; earlier this month, they topped defending D1 champs Madison Memorial at the Barracuda Invite at Brookfield East.
Arrowhead captured the holiday-season meet at Homestead with 476 points, easily topping second-place Bayport (347). Lake Forest, a strong Chicago-area swim program which won this meet last year, finished 3rd (301), with D2 power Whitefish Bay (238) and Menomonee Falls/Hamilton/Germantown (220) rounding out the top 5.
HA, ranked #1 in the latest state coaches D1 poll, was led by junior breaststroker Brent Schreibel, an emerging force in the event, and backstroker Chris Jenkyns. In a meet that featured a mix of high school and college-level events, Schreibel took both the 100-yard and 200-yard breaststrokes, the latter by a mere three-tenths of a second over Homestead's Cody Burkard in one of the best races of the meet. Jenkyns added wins in the 100 back (54.49) and 200 back (2:00.89). Sophomore Jake Prodoehl contributed a win in the 500 free (4:58.75), and Jenkyns, Schreibel, and Prodoehl joined flyer Cody Roller to capture the 200 medley relay (1:41.60).
Arrowhead this year brought a lot of state-meet experience to the table, but needed to show its top swimmers could swim with the best in the state. Led by Schreibel and Jenkyns, HA looks like a top contender for the D1 state title in February.
Other highights of the meet:
-- Despite finishing second by more than 100 points, Bayport's runner-up finish should not be overlooked. The Pirates returned a strong core of swimmers this year that's been augmented by the return of senior Andrew Sumnicht, who skipped his junior year of high school swimming to focus on club swimming. Sumnicht, who qualified for the state meet as a sophomore, had a solid meet with a win in the 200 IM (2:00.74) over Greenfield/Greendale's Matt Jungers (2:00.88) in the best race of the day, along with a 3rd in the 400 IM. Bayport also got a win in the 50 free from junior James Killian (22.32), and a very good meet from senior Ryan Keuler, who had 2nd-place finishes in the 100 free (48.66) and 200 free (1:46.22). The three swimmers also joined senior Mitch King to win the 200 free relay (1:29.83) in a time that's faster than any posted on the WISCA top-30 list so far. Bayport certainly looks to be one of the favorites at the Neenah sectional, and could make some serious noise at the D1 state meet.
-- Greenfield/Greendale junior Jack Lennertz, second last year at the D1 state meet in the 100 fly, won both fly events at the meet -- a dominant, near-7-second win in the 200 fly (1:55.74) and the 100 fly (52.23). Lennertz is looking this year to add another state fly title to the family mantle; sister Jenna was a four-time D2 state champ in the 100 fly.
-- The match-up between D2 powers Whitefish Bay and Shorewood was a bit of a letdown, as both teams were missing top swimmers -- sprinter Chuckie Prestigiacomo for WB, and Kasmir Bohannon and Stephen Meyer for Shorewood. Without two of its best swimmers, Shorewood finished 8th at the meet with 143.5 points.
-- One of the most impressive wins of the night came from Brookfield Academy's Jack Donovan, who won the 100 free in 48.59. Donovan swam the 200 free last year at the D2 state meet, finishing 6th. With three of the top four finishers in the 200 free returning in D2, might Donovan opt for the 100 free, where three of the top four finishers last year graduated? We'll find out -- Donovan's winning 100 free time is faster than any time posted on the D2 top-30 list for the event so far.
UPDATE: Some very good photos of the meet here:
http://www.mequonnow.com/multimedia/photos/80352897.html
UPDATE 2: Results here...
2009 Metro Swim Officials Results Splits
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Saturday, December 26, 2009
An update on Garrett Weber-Gale
Here's a good story by the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel's Gary D'Amato on Garrett Weber-Gale, arguably the most notable swimmer to come out of Wisconsin's high schools.
http://www.jsonline.com/sports/etc/80120667.html
Weber-Gale swam for Nicolet High School, and still holds state Div. 1 records in the 100 free (43.49) and back (49.73). He went on to swim at the University of Texas following his high school career. He swam a leg on the United States' famous winning 400-meter free relay at the 2008 Beijing Olympics that featured Michael Phelps; the photo of Weber-Gale and Phelps celebrating the come-from-behind victory is one of the more famous swimming photos of recent history.
Note to all aspiring swimmers out there -- Weber-Gale swam on "C" relays while a freshman at Nicolet.
http://www.jsonline.com/sports/etc/80120667.html
Weber-Gale swam for Nicolet High School, and still holds state Div. 1 records in the 100 free (43.49) and back (49.73). He went on to swim at the University of Texas following his high school career. He swam a leg on the United States' famous winning 400-meter free relay at the 2008 Beijing Olympics that featured Michael Phelps; the photo of Weber-Gale and Phelps celebrating the come-from-behind victory is one of the more famous swimming photos of recent history.
Note to all aspiring swimmers out there -- Weber-Gale swam on "C" relays while a freshman at Nicolet.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Big 8 tilt goes to Mad. Memorial
In a big early-season test for Madison Memorial, the Spartans easily handled Big 8 rival Verona in a tri-dual at Janesville Craig Friday night.
Memorial used its superior depth to outpoint the Wildcats 106-64. The teams split 10 of the 11 races in the meet, but Memoria's three relay wins, combined with plenty of 2nd-through-5th places, gave it the victory over Verona. Michael Drives was the lone individual winner for the Spartans, taking the 200 free (1:46.91) and the breaststroke (1:01.24). Verona's Derek Toomey continued his strong season with wins in both sprints (22.02 50 free; 48.74 100 free), and was joined as a double-winner for the Wildcats by junior Spencer Ritt (54.84 fly/58.62 back).
In the best race of the night, Verona senior Jacob Olandt just out-touched Memorial sophomore Patrick Franken in the 500 free, 4:55.98 to 4:55.99. If anyone is hankering for a spot in the D1 state meet this year, it's certainly Olandt. Two years ago, he came within three spots of qualifying for state. Last year, his sectional time of 5:00.31 was the 24th-fastest in the state, but he was knocked out of the state meet by a slower automatic sectional winner qualifier. His times so far indicate he's determined to take his place on the starting blocks this year in the 500.
One final note -- keep an eye on Janesville Craig junior Alex Loftus. His win in the 200 IM was the only one by a Craig swimmer at the meet, and his time -- 2:02.88 -- is one of the fastest posted in D1 this season.
Memorial used its superior depth to outpoint the Wildcats 106-64. The teams split 10 of the 11 races in the meet, but Memoria's three relay wins, combined with plenty of 2nd-through-5th places, gave it the victory over Verona. Michael Drives was the lone individual winner for the Spartans, taking the 200 free (1:46.91) and the breaststroke (1:01.24). Verona's Derek Toomey continued his strong season with wins in both sprints (22.02 50 free; 48.74 100 free), and was joined as a double-winner for the Wildcats by junior Spencer Ritt (54.84 fly/58.62 back).
In the best race of the night, Verona senior Jacob Olandt just out-touched Memorial sophomore Patrick Franken in the 500 free, 4:55.98 to 4:55.99. If anyone is hankering for a spot in the D1 state meet this year, it's certainly Olandt. Two years ago, he came within three spots of qualifying for state. Last year, his sectional time of 5:00.31 was the 24th-fastest in the state, but he was knocked out of the state meet by a slower automatic sectional winner qualifier. His times so far indicate he's determined to take his place on the starting blocks this year in the 500.
One final note -- keep an eye on Janesville Craig junior Alex Loftus. His win in the 200 IM was the only one by a Craig swimmer at the meet, and his time -- 2:02.88 -- is one of the fastest posted in D1 this season.
Swim polls and top-30 times
As the boys season heads into the traditional mid-season holiday break from meets, it's worth a mention to encourage boys coaches to submit times to the WISCA coaches website, which compiles top-30 times for both D1 and D2 and uses those times to calculate its poll of the top 10 teams in the state.
The first poll is out (http://www.wisca.net/polls), and although (conflict alert -- my son swims for Monona Grove) I'd like to think Monona Grove has improved enough to rank 2nd in the state for D2, I'm objective enough to think that's not an accurate reflection of the pecking order in D2 this year.
As previously mentioned, the beauty of the WISCA poll -- as opposed to polls in other sports like football and basketball -- is that it's totally merit-driven, based solely on times. But the poll can only be accurate if a full complement of coaches are submitting their team's times. So coaches --if you have a few minutes during the holiday break -- submit those times!
Here's the first WISCA poll of the season:
D1
1 -- Arrowhead
2 -- Madison Memorial
3 -- Sauk Prairie-Wisconsin Heights
4 -- New Berlin West-Eisenhower
5 -- Madison West
6 -- Janesville Craig
7 -- Fond du Lac
8 -- DeForest-Sun Prairie
9 -- Waukesha North-Kettle Moraine
D2
1 -- McFarland
2 -- Monona Grove
3 -- Plymouth
4 -- Grafton
5 -- Medford
The first poll is out (http://www.wisca.net/polls), and although (conflict alert -- my son swims for Monona Grove) I'd like to think Monona Grove has improved enough to rank 2nd in the state for D2, I'm objective enough to think that's not an accurate reflection of the pecking order in D2 this year.
As previously mentioned, the beauty of the WISCA poll -- as opposed to polls in other sports like football and basketball -- is that it's totally merit-driven, based solely on times. But the poll can only be accurate if a full complement of coaches are submitting their team's times. So coaches --if you have a few minutes during the holiday break -- submit those times!
Here's the first WISCA poll of the season:
D1
1 -- Arrowhead
2 -- Madison Memorial
3 -- Sauk Prairie-Wisconsin Heights
4 -- New Berlin West-Eisenhower
5 -- Madison West
6 -- Janesville Craig
7 -- Fond du Lac
8 -- DeForest-Sun Prairie
9 -- Waukesha North-Kettle Moraine
D2
1 -- McFarland
2 -- Monona Grove
3 -- Plymouth
4 -- Grafton
5 -- Medford
Wisconsin Valley Conference results
Kudos to the Wisconsin Valley Conference, which has an excellent website that posts results from lots of athletic contests, including swimming. Here's the conference website:
http://www.wvcstats.org/index.html
Click on the tab for "Boys Swimming," and then on "Schedule/Results" listed above the conference standings for a rundown on meets in the conference. Click on an individual meet to get results. They even have archived results of conference meets going back several years. Well done.
http://www.wvcstats.org/index.html
Click on the tab for "Boys Swimming," and then on "Schedule/Results" listed above the conference standings for a rundown on meets in the conference. Click on an individual meet to get results. They even have archived results of conference meets going back several years. Well done.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Barracuda Invite: Arrowhead tops Mad. Memorial
In one of the first big meets of the boys season, Hartland Arrowhead topped defending Div. 1 state champs Madison Memorial at the Barracuda Invitational at Brookfield East High School Wednesday night.
Arrowhead swam to a 497-444 victory over the Spartans as the two teams dominated the six-team invite. Brookfield finished 3rd with 305.5 points, followed by Middleton (286.5), Marquette (274), and Brookfield Academy (143).
Arrowhead won the meet with a strong display of team depth (in a meet that counted only one relay for points, but allowed 30+ individual entries per team). Arrowhead also picked up 29 points in diving to to 14 for Memorial. Memorial won two relays to one for Arrowhead, and each team won three individual events. Arrowhead, 4th last year at the state meet after having won four state titles this decade, will certainly get a motivational boost from beating the defending state champs.
Leading the way for HA was senior Chris Jenkyns, who took the 500 (4:52.86), was 2nd in the back (54.51), and led off his team's winning medley relay. Also winning for HA: sophomore Jake Prodoehl in the very fast 200 free (1:46.48) and junior Brent Schreibel in the breaststroke (1:02.83 -- a commanding win by 1.4 seconds).
For Memorial, senior Michael Drives took the 200 IM in a state-leading 1:56.53 (his winning margin was more than six seconds) and the 100 free in 48.22. Sophomore Ben Anderson added a win in the 50 free (22.53) by a clear half-second -- a pretty big margin for the shortest race of the meet.
Other meet highlights:
-- As mentioned, the 200 free was a terrific race, with Prodoehl edging a solid field that saw five swimmers go under 1:51. Interestingly, the first three finishers in the race were sophomores -- Prodoehl was followed to the wall by Marquette's Lucas Kuriga (1:47.67) and Memorial's Patrick Franken (1:48.23).
-- The 500 free/200 free relay is always a tough double to pull off, as the events fall back-to-back on the swim schedule and differ so dramatically. But Franken, an emerging star for the Memorial Spartans, pulled it off with aplomb, as he finished second to Jenkyns in the 500 free (4:58.86), then turned around right away to anchor Memorial's winning 200 free relay (1:31.21).
The host Brookfield team squeezed in between Memorial and HA for 2nd-place in the 200 free relay with a time of 1:31.73.
-- Brookfield Academy's super twosome of juniors Jack Donovan and Jonathan Marks had solid performances -- Donovan won the fly (53.38) and added a 5th in the 200 free (1:50.87), while Marks garnered a 3rd in the breaststroke (1:05.51) and a 4th in the IM (2:06.18).
-- Marquette senior Michael Donofrio dominated the competition in diving, winning by more than 60 points with a score of 424.70. Donofrio led the state diving competition at one point during last year's meet before falling to 4th; he's one of the favorites to take the D1 state diving crown this year.
-- Watch out for Memorial's 400 free relay; the quartet of Franken, Michael Salerno, Anderson and Drives has the look of a very good relay, and their winning time of 3:17.08 (more than three seconds over runner-up HA) is solid for this time of the season. With a meet on the line and the outcome hanging on the 400 free relay, Drives isn't a bad guy to have anchoring.
(Thanks to Barracuda Invite meet manager Chad Knutson for forwarding results.)
UPDATE: Results here...
Barracuda Invite Meet Results
Arrowhead swam to a 497-444 victory over the Spartans as the two teams dominated the six-team invite. Brookfield finished 3rd with 305.5 points, followed by Middleton (286.5), Marquette (274), and Brookfield Academy (143).
Arrowhead won the meet with a strong display of team depth (in a meet that counted only one relay for points, but allowed 30+ individual entries per team). Arrowhead also picked up 29 points in diving to to 14 for Memorial. Memorial won two relays to one for Arrowhead, and each team won three individual events. Arrowhead, 4th last year at the state meet after having won four state titles this decade, will certainly get a motivational boost from beating the defending state champs.
Leading the way for HA was senior Chris Jenkyns, who took the 500 (4:52.86), was 2nd in the back (54.51), and led off his team's winning medley relay. Also winning for HA: sophomore Jake Prodoehl in the very fast 200 free (1:46.48) and junior Brent Schreibel in the breaststroke (1:02.83 -- a commanding win by 1.4 seconds).
For Memorial, senior Michael Drives took the 200 IM in a state-leading 1:56.53 (his winning margin was more than six seconds) and the 100 free in 48.22. Sophomore Ben Anderson added a win in the 50 free (22.53) by a clear half-second -- a pretty big margin for the shortest race of the meet.
Other meet highlights:
-- As mentioned, the 200 free was a terrific race, with Prodoehl edging a solid field that saw five swimmers go under 1:51. Interestingly, the first three finishers in the race were sophomores -- Prodoehl was followed to the wall by Marquette's Lucas Kuriga (1:47.67) and Memorial's Patrick Franken (1:48.23).
-- The 500 free/200 free relay is always a tough double to pull off, as the events fall back-to-back on the swim schedule and differ so dramatically. But Franken, an emerging star for the Memorial Spartans, pulled it off with aplomb, as he finished second to Jenkyns in the 500 free (4:58.86), then turned around right away to anchor Memorial's winning 200 free relay (1:31.21).
The host Brookfield team squeezed in between Memorial and HA for 2nd-place in the 200 free relay with a time of 1:31.73.
-- Brookfield Academy's super twosome of juniors Jack Donovan and Jonathan Marks had solid performances -- Donovan won the fly (53.38) and added a 5th in the 200 free (1:50.87), while Marks garnered a 3rd in the breaststroke (1:05.51) and a 4th in the IM (2:06.18).
-- Marquette senior Michael Donofrio dominated the competition in diving, winning by more than 60 points with a score of 424.70. Donofrio led the state diving competition at one point during last year's meet before falling to 4th; he's one of the favorites to take the D1 state diving crown this year.
-- Watch out for Memorial's 400 free relay; the quartet of Franken, Michael Salerno, Anderson and Drives has the look of a very good relay, and their winning time of 3:17.08 (more than three seconds over runner-up HA) is solid for this time of the season. With a meet on the line and the outcome hanging on the 400 free relay, Drives isn't a bad guy to have anchoring.
(Thanks to Barracuda Invite meet manager Chad Knutson for forwarding results.)
UPDATE: Results here...
Barracuda Invite Meet Results
The Iowa pipeline continues
The University of Iowa continues to look to Wisconsin high schools for swim recruits. Iowa just announced this year's recruits, and they included four top Wisconsin high school swimmers:
-- Katelyn Baltes of Verona;
-- Abby Tuchscherer of Oshkosh West;
-- Elise Borja of Waukesha South/Mukwonago;
-- Tyler Lentz of Sauk Prairie/Wisconsin Heights.
Here's a rundown:
http://www.collegeswimming.com/news/2009/dec/15/iowa-women-sign-nine/
In the past two years, the Hawkeyes have lured state champs Tommy Ratdke of Cedarburg and Byron Butler of New Berlin to Iowa City. Look for even more recruiting trips by Iowa into Wisconsin in the coming years; it's hard to imagine this (http://www.recserv.uiowa.edu/geninfo/construction/eastcampus.htm)
-- Katelyn Baltes of Verona;
-- Abby Tuchscherer of Oshkosh West;
-- Elise Borja of Waukesha South/Mukwonago;
-- Tyler Lentz of Sauk Prairie/Wisconsin Heights.
Here's a rundown:
http://www.collegeswimming.com/news/2009/dec/15/iowa-women-sign-nine/
In the past two years, the Hawkeyes have lured state champs Tommy Ratdke of Cedarburg and Byron Butler of New Berlin to Iowa City. Look for even more recruiting trips by Iowa into Wisconsin in the coming years; it's hard to imagine this (http://www.recserv.uiowa.edu/geninfo/construction/eastcampus.htm)
won't continue to be a lure for Wisconsin swimmers, especially compared to this:
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