December 14, 2020 at 8:56 a.m.
RHS swimmers claim seven events, win Hodag Relays
RHS swimmers claim seven events, win Hodag Relays
Rhinelander won seven events - three in record fashion - and claimed the annual non-conference invitational Saturday at the Heck Family Community Pool.
This year's Hodag Relays was whittled down to three teams. Rhinelander was in control much of the way, leading the team standings virtually from wire-to-wire.
"This is a great way to have fun but also get some useable times," coach Jenny Heck said. "Without as many meets as we'd normally would have, we're able to get splits and see where fit best in our end of season."
There were plenty of family bragging rights up for grabs on Saturday as the Hodags took down the meet record in the 200-yard freestyle relay. The squad of Daniel Gillingham, Jack Antonuk, Joseph Heck and Charlie Heck won the event with a 1:31.64. That was more than two seconds faster than the previous event record, which was held by a Hodag squad that included Charlie and Joseph's father, Ken, and uncle, Dave.
"If there's a record in sight, these guys are hungry. They were talking about it and, especially, go after that 200 free relay with a lot of familiar names on the board," said Jenny Heck, wife of Ken and mother of Charlie and Joseph. "I'm sure they're going to have some bragging rights for a long time to come. That's really great. I was surprised they went even that fast. That was really great."
The same foursome of Gillingham, Antonuk, Heck and Heck also took down a record in the 500-yard decrescendo freestyle relay, which sees the first swimmer swim 200 yards, and each subsequent swimmer swim 50 fewer yards. They hit the wall in 4:35.55, beating the record set by Bay Port in 2007 by 5.16 seconds.
"Those freestyle guys' splits were really fast," coach Heck said. "We're going to need those at end of season. Now I think they have a little more fire. They know they can do it. If they can do it while training this hard in mid-season, they know that they can do great things in the future."
Rhinelander also set a record in a new event to the Hodags Relays - the 200 yard reverse medley relay. Instead of the legs going the traditional backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly and freestyle, the event was swum in the inverse order and the team of Marcus O'Malley, Charlie Heck, Ashton Cole and Zacha King took it home with a time of 1:56.33.
Rhinelander won all three of the specialty stroke relays on Saturday. Zacha King, Gavin Ostermann and Jacob Schoppe took the 300 butterfly relay (3:15.69); Daniel King, Eli Lundt and Carter Gaber took the 300 backstroke relay (3:27.19) and the trio of Zacha King, Lundt and Schoppe won the 200 breaststroke relay (3:54.50). The Hodags also added a win in the 150 mixer medley relay with Joseph Heck, Gillingham and Antonuk (1:17.74).
Rhinelander added a runner-up finish in the 400 individual medley relay with the team of Schoppe, Ostermann, Gaber and Daniel King.
Despite disqualifying from the final event, the Hodags cruised to an 18-point win over Marshfield. Lakeland finished third, 34 points back.
Rhinelander is on the road tonight, taking on Shawano for the second time in eight days. The Hodags defeated the Hawks 130-40 in GNC play last Tuesday at the Heck Pool. Rhinelander is back at home Thursday night to face Lakeland.
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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