August 18, 2017 at 11:35 a.m.
Winnicki leads Hodags at Colby Pent
Winnicki leads Hodags at Colby Pent
Several athletes finished in the top six in their divisions, based on graduation year, and Makenna Winnicki had an impressive debut. She was the fastest freshman at the meet and placed in the top 10 overall in several categories.
"I'm really happy with the time drops across the board with these girls," coach Lindsay Byrka said. "That's one of the things we talked about as we did the time trials - and those are the seed times I entered them at. I said, 'be prepared to be winning your heat,' and I saw a lot of that. I'm really glad with the way the girls attacked the front in the race and chased down somebody at the end, too."
No team scores were kept during the meet which has a unique format. Every swimmer from the seven schools that attended competed in a 50-yard race in each of the four strokes, plus a 100-yard individual medley. Each athlete's total time from the five races was used to calculate the final standings.
Winnicki was the fastest freshman in the butterfly, breaststroke and the IM, was second-fastest in the two other events and posted a combined time of 3 minutes, 11.22 seconds - the fifth-fastest time among all competitors. Winnicki's time in the butterfly (28.72) was fifth-fastest overall, she was sixth overall in the IM (1:07.80) and the backstroke (30.48) and ninth in the freestyle (27.50).
Fellow freshman Lisa Kennedy was the third-fastest freshman (3:20.73) and posted the third-fastest time overall in the backstroke (30.09).
"We knew Makenna and Lisa were both going to be near the top," Byrka said. "There are a couple of other good freshmen that are coming in. It's always good to see what teams are bringing in. We kind of have an idea based on club and then you get a couple of these surprises here and there."
Senior Jenna Hawley posted the eight-best time overall in the breaststroke (36.19). Junior Grace Heck was 11th overall in the IM (1:1059) and 12th in the pentathlon (3:19.89).
Other highlights included:
- Marisa McGuire was third among sophomores in the breaststroke, freestyle, IM and pentathlon (3:20.57);
- Ella Schiek was third among freshmen in the breaststroke and sixth in the pentathlon (3:35.23);
- Heck was four among juniors in the freestyle and IM, and fifth in the pentathlon;
- Hawley was fourth among seniors in the breaststroke, fifth in both the butterfly and backstroke and sixth in the pentathlon and
- Taylor Macak and Carly Seidl were fifth and sixth among seniors in the freestyle.
"I think we're definitely a lot better fly crew than I thought and I'm really impressed with that," Byrka noted. "We've been doing a lot of drills with that. I think our sprint freestyle is coming along and I definitely thing our backstroke crew is a lot stronger this year than we have been in the years since I've taken over. I'm excited to see where we can fill in some of those gaps in the breaststroke, and just being able to finish the race. That's indicative of how we trained this summer. I think we didn't give it as much in the summer as we needed to and that showed at the end of the races. That's something that's going to be our focus for the next few weeks."
Rhinelander caught its first glimpse at three other Great Northern Conference programs Wednesday, including perennial front-runners Tomahawk and Ladysmith/Bruce/Flambeau. The Hatchets had a strong showing with five swimmers in the top 10 of the pentathlon.
"Tomahawk is as impressive as I knew they were going to be," Byrka said. "Ladysmith, they lost a lot to graduation, but I think they got a lot, too. I was happy to see that they got a lot because I was kind of in the mindset that maybe we'd come in and beat them this year without a lot of help. They're really stepping up and showing that they've got some newcomers as well. That's going to be a great race when we meet them because I think we match up really well."
Rhinelander hosts Ladysmith Sept. 14 in a GNC dual. The Hodags traveled to Stevens Point Friday for a relay meet that concluded after deadline. The Hodags travel to Wausau Monday for a triangular meet against Wausau West and Lakeland.
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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