March 22, 2017 at 1:47 p.m.
Team Review: RHS boys' swimming
Hodags rose above adversity in 2016-17
Team Review: RHS boys' swimming
No, the Hodags didn't repeat as Great Northern Conference champions. In fact, they finished fifth in the league. The team placed fifth out of 15 teams at sectionals and qualified for the WIAA state meet in four events, but what will make the season memorable for the Hodags won't be the results, rather the trials they went through to achieve them.
Rhinelander's numbers were low at the start of the season, and eligibility issues winnowed the roster even further. Then came the pertussis outbreak that brought the season to a standstill, right when the team should have been training its hardest. That was followed by a back-loaded meet schedule that left the Hodags weary before the postseason. Yet, somehow, the Hodags overcame all of that to perform their best at the end of the season.
Ironically, all of the adversity the Hodags faced this year may have helped the team more than it hurt it, head coach Lindsay Byrka said earlier this month during the team's banquet.
"Had we never faced these obstacles, we may have never developed the qualities necessary to accomplish these feats," she said.
Here are five things to know about the Hodag swim team's season.
Changing priorities
Rhinelander's conference title repeat chances already stood on thin ice prior to the start of the season, with the graduation of nearly half of last year's championship squad.
The Hodags were hopeful that they would be able to field a full lineup at the start of the season but, when the dust settled, the team ended up with nine swimmers - three short of the minimum needed to fill all 11 events.
That lack of depth proved costly in the team's first two meets. Despite winning more races than Antigo and Tomahawk, the Hodags lost both duals. Then came a loss to Lakeland that left the Hodags 0-3 in the GNC. At that point, the team was forced to re-evaluate its goals.
"We did a full 180 from where we started at the beginning," Byrka told the River News back in January. "We starting thinking maybe we could be at the top of the conference, maybe first or second. With eligibility (issues), we did that flip and we started thinking, 'Nope, that's not going to work.'"
The plan was to forsake the conference season to prepare for the WIAA tournament. It was a strategy that yielded multiple state berths in 2015 when the Hodags were short on bodies and it was all going to plan.
Pertussis peril
Or at least everything was going according to plan until Dec. 16, 2016, otherwise known as P-Day among Rhinelander's winter sports teams. That night the district, in conjuction with the Oneida County Health Department, canceled classes, practices and games through Jan. 2 due to a high number of confirmed or suspected whooping cough cases in the district.
Instead of putting in some of its longest, hardest sets of the season - which is the typical plan over Christmas practice for the team - the season came to a screeching halt.
"This season was tormented with obstacles that slowed us down every time we tried to speed up," Byrka said during the banquet. "The pinnacle of our breakdown came when the pertussis outbreak - over the school holiday break - forced us to hit the brakes. Quite literally, our season was broken. We just needed a little momentum and, ironically, we just needed to catch a break."
Back-loaded schedule
If the Hodags were looking for a break, the schedule once practices and meets resumed certainly wasn't going to provide it. The Hodags returned to action Jan. 7 in an invitational at Ashwaubenon High School. In the three weeks that followed, the Hodags took part in seven meets - including two occasions where they competed on back-to-back nights.
"This is our third meet this week and it showed," Byrka said following a Jan. 27 loss to Antigo that left the Hodags 2-8 in the GNC. "They were really tired. I guess as happy as we were with the beginning swims we were disappointed with the end of the night."
Sectional surge
The Hodags went from conference competition mode into full-blown taper mode to try to get ready for the postseason and the results turned out even better than Byrka could have hoped.
Nolan Francis, the team's top swimmer during the 2016-17 season, paced the Hodags to state berths in four events at a WIAA Division 2 sectional meet Feb. 11 in Stevens Point. The highlight was his sectional championship in the 200-yard individual medley when the sophomore became the first swimmer in school history to break the 2-minute barrier. He added a sectional title in the 100 butterfly and was on Rhinelander's qualifying 200 medley and 200 freestyle relay teams.
"We knew what we were doing, despite adversity," Byrka said deck-side following the sectional meet. "I'm glad the guys were on board and they trusted us. That's a big thing to put their whole season in the hands of coaches who have never done this before but, luckily, we had a lot of volunteer help this year and I asked for every opinion I could possibly get. I just evaluated everything and made the best call at the end of the day."
Francis parlayed his sectional championships into Rhinelander's first podium finishes at state since Ben Lonsdorf in 2009. Francis took sixth in both the 200 IM and the 100 butterfly. The 200 medley relay team of Francis, Thaddeus Heck, David King and Russell Benoy finished 12th. The 200 freestyle relay team of Benoy, Francis, Devon Gaber and Martin Hoger was disqualified at state due to a false start on a relay exchange.
What's next
Individually, the future looks bright for the Hodags, with eight of the nine swimmers who finished this season slated to return. The only loss from that list is exchange student Vlad Gorodoja, who joined the team in late January.
Another year older and another year stronger, the Hodags could be in line for some big things next season. The biggest question mark will once again be numbers, as the Hodags will need to bring in at least four swimmers during the offseason in order to field a full lineup.
That will be a challenge but, as this season proved, the Hodags don't tend to shy away from challenges.
"We proved to ourselves, and our competitors, that there was nothing this underdog team couldn't overcome," Byrka said.
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
Comments:
You must login to comment.