January 25, 2019 at 1:21 p.m.
Perfect 10: Hodag swimmers finish undefeated in GNC duals
Perfect 10: Hodag swimmers finish undefeated in GNC duals
The Hodags put a bow on a 10-0 season in dual meet competition Thursday night, winning seven of 11 events and using its superior depth to rout second-place Lakeland 101-56 in Minocqua.
"It was a good night of racing. I think there were some good swims and we we're really pleased to have the 10-0 record. We took a moment to celebrate that tonight," coach Jenny Heck said. "We always need to take a moment to celebrate when you can and it was a good night to celebrate that. It was our final dual meet and it was against Lakeland. It was a good meet."
Lakeland's quartet of Liam Hogan, Tyler Teichmiller, Alex Tucker and Brandon Boh gave the Hodags a run for their money - combining to win four races for the T-Birds - but Rhinelander's depth won the night. With the exception of the 400-yard freestyle relay, in which Rhinelander had only one entry, the Hodags placed at least two swimmers in the top three in every event.
Junior David King was Rhinelander's only four-event winner on the night. He claimed victory in the 100 butterfly (56.89 seconds), led a Hodag 1-2-3 sweep of the 100 backstroke (1:04.37) and was on the winning 200 medley and 200 freestyle relay squads.
"David King had a really good and solid meet tonight. I was really pleased to see his times come down in the butterfly," Jenny Heck said.
Nolan Francis won the 50 freestyle for Rhinelander (22.91), Russell Benoy took the 100 freestyle (52.19) and Thaddeus Heck won the 100 breaststroke (1:06.03). Those three, along with King, dominated Lakeland's quartet of Boh, Teichmiller, Tucker and Hogan to win the 200 freestyle relay by more than seven seconds (1:42.13).
"I thought Thaddeus had some good times in the breaststroke - both his split (in the medley relay) and his individual," Jenny Heck noted.
Rhinelander added a 1-2 finish in the 200 freestyle relay with the team of Thaddeus Heck, King, Ashton Cole and Martin Hoger (1:45.56) beating out the team of Joseph Heck, Jacob Schoppe, Cooper Kovac and Devon Gaber.
Joseph Heck was the runner-up in both the 200 freestyle and 100 breaststroke. Benoy finished second to Francis in the 50 freestyle, Francis was the runner-up in the 500 freestyle, Hoger was second in the 100 backstroke and the team of Benoy, Gaber, Joseph Heck and Francis was second in the 400 freestyle relay.
Heck also noted improvement from her first-year swimmers in the meet's longest event.
"I was also very pleased about our 500 guys, especially Ashton and Cooper. Ashton took about a minute off his time (third, 7:19.95). Cooper took about 45 seconds off his time (sixth, 7:40.20). We were really happy with their swims," she said.
Rhinelander finished three wins ahead of Lakeland in the dual meet standings, however this year only the Great Northern Conference meet next Friday in Medford will be used to determine the conference champion.
The way the Hodags are swimming right now, it may be a fait accompli.
"We'll have some really good races," coach Heck said. "The benefit of our team is we have some fast guys, but we also have the depth. Lakeland has some fast swimmers, but we have more depth and all of our guys play a major role that should help us in our overall conference standing."
The Hodags are close to beginning their taper for the end of the season, though coach Heck said the team will likely continue to train through the conference meet with bigger goals looming on the horizon.
"We're still working hard up to conference and we're laying off as much as we did in the past because we want to swim fast at conference, but we want to swim faster at sectionals and even faster at state," she said.
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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