November 16, 2020 at 8:26 a.m.
PLANNED TO PERFECTION
Rhinelander rides late rally to WIAA D2 state girls' swim title
PLANNED TO PERFECTION
Rhinelander took a leap into legend and lore on this fateful Friday night. The Hodags won four events, placed in the top four in five others, and captured the WIAA Division 2 state championship hosted by Waukesha South High School.
Rhinelander capped its championship performance with an exclamation point, with Malia Francis holding off a hard-charging Jocelyn Zgola of Greendale in the anchor leg of the 400-yard freestyle relay, giving the Hodags a comfortable 27-point cushion at the top of the standings over runner-up Shorewood.
Francis had a hand in all four of Rhinelander's individual state titles on Friday night. She repeated as state champion in the 100 butterfly and the 100 backstroke, and was on the team's championship 200 and 400 freestyle relay squads.
After a combined seven runner-up finishes at state between the boys' and girls' squads, the Hodags finally got the first team state championship in the long, storied history of their swimming program.
"It means more than I can even put into words," coach Jenny Heck said. "This was years and years of hard work for these girls. This did not happen overnight and it did not happen without a lot of people - their parents, coaches - along the way at all different levels, the community supporting them, rooting for them team and making this happen."
It marked the first WIAA-sanctioned team state championship in a girls' sport in Rhinelander High School history, and the first WIAA team state title of any kind for RHS since the boys' cross country team won it all back in 1987.
Nothing was going to stop this Rhinelander team, which tore through a 2020 season that was always shadowed by the specter of the COVID-19 pandemic. Everything from how practices and meets were conducted, to the number of teams participating and even the location of the state meet was changed in this unusual year. The Hodags knew that each meet they swam could be their last, but never wavered from the plan of being at their peak come the day of the state meet.
"We didn't even know in the summer if we were even going to finish the dual meets," Heck said. "We didn't know if we'd have a conference meet, a sectional meet, a state meet. We are just so thrilled to be here and have the opportunity to show off what we knew we had in us."
The Hodags entered the night as 24 1/2-point favorites over Shorewood for the state title, but hemorrhaged most of that buffer away through the first seven events of the meet.
When it mattered the most, the two seniors on the state squad - Makenna Winnicki and Lisa Kennedy - stemmed the tide. Winnicki gave the Hodags' a big points swing with a fourth-place finish in the 500-yard freestyle. Kennedy added a fourth-place finish to go along with Malia Francis' state title in the 100 backstroke. That helped the Hodags get most of their margin for error back and they entered the final race 21 points ahead of Shorewood.
Rhinelander needed to finish only eighth or better in the 400 freestyle relay to clinch the state title, but instead ended with a bang as the team of Genna Fugle, Abi Winnicki, Makenna Winnicki and Malia Francis dropped a whopping 7.47 seconds from their seed time, set a school record of 3:35.80 in the event and held off Greendale for the win by 0.20 seconds.
When Shorewood made inroads into Rhinelander's advantage - leading the Hodags by 20 points instead of the projected 4 1/2 after the 100 freestyle - Heck's message to the team was simple, "Keep with the plan."
The Hodags responded down the stretch, outscoring the Greyhounds 141-94 over the final five events.
"We were all a little stressed, I'd say, but Jenny really kept us all together," said freshman Abi Winnicki, who was on the Hodags' state-championship winning 200 and 400 freestyle relay teams. "She just got us hyped. She did and she just kept telling us that we're going to come back the second half and that's what we did."
Part of Rhinelander's early struggles could be traced back to the 200 individual medley. Neither Makenna Winnicki nor Kennedy were able to maintain their seeding in the event with Winnicki placing ninth and Kennedy 16th. But the two put it behind them for their swims later in the meet.
Winnicki, swimming out of the slower of the two heats in the 500 after qualifying ninth in sectionals, put up a blistering time of 5:20.57 in the event. Only three swimmers in the second heat were able to better that time. When fourth-seeded Gretchen Lotter of Shorewood faded to seventh in the final standings, Winnicki swung a critical nine points the Hodags' direction when they needed it the most.
"Coming out of the first heat, I knew I had to move up, especially coming off not my best sectional time," she said. "I knew I could drop time and I knew I was going to be up in the top. I had that hope for the whole race. I knew I felt good. I stuck with my race plan and I came out fourth."
Kennedy, meanwhile, shattered her personal best time in the backstroke with a time of 58.15 seconds to hold on to her fourth qualifying spot in the event. It was a major accomplishment for the Hodag senior who, until 22 days prior at the Great Northern Conference virtual meet, had never cracked the 1-minute mark in the event.
"I knew I went a really fast (backstroke) split on the 200 IM and on the medley relay, so I knew I had what it took in the 100 backstroke," Kennedy said. "Even though I was kind of doubting myself and kind of worried about the team scores. We all had to write out our plan for each event for us to read over throughout the season. I just read over that two or three more times, just to assure myself that I had what it took to place where I needed to for us to win."
The Hodags' did not get to take a state trophy back to Rhinelander, because the hardware is currently on back order. But the WIAA had a stand-in trophy on hand for photos after the meet. Fittingly, Kennedy and Makenna Winnicki - the two holdovers from Rhinelander's state team in 2017 - claimed the prize for their squad.
"It is such an amazing feeling knowing that Lisa and I are ending off our final year with a state championship," Winnicki said.
Fast relays
The Hodags put up some eye-popping numbers in their two relay wins. In the 200 freestyle relay, all four legs swam 50 yards in 25.15-seconds or faster in a head-to-head battle with GNC rival Lakeland. Noelle St. Pierre, Abi Winnicki, Karis Francis and Malia Francis went 1:38.03 to better their seed time by 1.40 seconds. Entering the final leg of the relay, Malia Francis was 0.04 seconds behind Lakeland's Rylee Ahlborn for the lead. Francis turned in a race-best 23.51-second split to win the race by 0.76 seconds.
Francis also had a race-best split of 51.53 seconds in the 400 freestyle relay as the Hodags erased a 3.64-second deficit following the first 100 yards. Abi Winnicki closed much of that gap with a 52.76-second split and Makenna Winnicki went 54.47 to give Rhinelander a scant 0.04-second lead as Francis hit the water.
Going sub-52 seconds in a 100 freestyle, Malia Francis said, "I didn't know that I had that in me."
"I dove in and I was feeling good, on top of the water. I knew Makenna got us a slight lead from their anchor, from Greendale," she said. "Going in, having that little bit of an edge really helped to give me the confidence to finish it. That last 15 yards, I just stopped breathing, put my head down."
Despite adding 0.39 seconds to their seed time in the 200 medley relay, the Hodags still managed a third-place finish in the event with the team of Kennedy, St. Pierre, Makenna Winnicki and Karis Francis.
Malia's mission
Francis was the clear-cut favorite to win both of her individual events and had state records on her mind. She was not quite able to come up with either.
Francis' time of 55.96 in the butterfly bettered her school record in the event by 0.27 seconds and finished fifth on the all-time D2 list. Her winning time of 55.13 was actually slower than her 54.72 from last year, but still good enough for the fourth-fastest mark in the event all-time.
"I wasn't super happy with my backstroke," she said. "I felt like my fly was right where it was supposed to be. It was a little disappointing coming off the 200 free relay, but I couldn't be happier with my splits (in the relays)."
Heck attributed the slightly slower backstroke time to a backloaded program that saw Francis swim all four of her events after intermission.
"Malia swam very selflessly in four events in the second half of the meet. That's not easy to do," Heck said. "She did it for the best interest of the team. I know she wanted to get those state records, and had she been able to spread her events out a little bit, that could have happened, but I'm so grateful for her willingness to do it for the team."
Abi's ascension
Abi Winnicki had a strong debut in her first WIAA state meet, placing second in the 200-yard freestyle and third in the 100 freestyle.
Winnicki was seeded fourth in the 200 freestyle, but shaved 0.39 seconds off her school record in the event as she hit the wall in 1:54.99, edging Whitefish Bay's Casey Stephens by 0.02 seconds for the runner-up spot.
Winnicki entered as the top seed in the 100 freestyle and dropped time, but was beat out by Greendale's Katarina Stanic and Rice Lake's Faith Forsberg for the win. Still, Winnicki's mark of 53.28 eclipsed the Rhinelander school record of 53.37 set in 1993 by Lindsay Byrka.
"That 200 really set the tone," she said. "I was just stunned with my time. I got super excited and hyped up the team. The 100 was kind of disappointing for me, but I realized I got a best a time and got the record I wanted since I was like 10."
As happy as Abi Winnicki was with her performances, Makenna Winnicki was even more overwhelmed, struggling to hold back tears while reflecting on her younger sister's accomplishments.
"I'm not even sad that I'm done. I'm just so happy of how Abi did," she said.
Record night
In total, Rhinelander set five school records on Friday in its most successful WIAA state meet. The Hodags were the state runners-up in 1992, 1993 and 1994 - losing the state title to Shorewood in 1994 - but had never claimed the state title until Friday night.
The four event state titles surpassed the three titles the team won in 1993 for the most in a single state meet in program history.
Malia Francis now has six individual state titles, surpassing Byrka's five state titles won during the 1992 and 1993 state meets. The six titles ties Francis with John Theurer for the most individual state titles in school history, regardless of gender. Theurer three-peated in the 200 and 400-yard freestyle events in the 1966, 1967 and 1968 state meets.
The RHS boys' swim team has never won a state title - finishing runner-up four straight years to Waukesha from 1965-1968.
Other results
In total, the Hodags had 15 entries at the state meet, tied for the most in this year's D2 field.
St. Pierre, a junior, finished seventh in the 50 freestyle (25.06) and eighth in the 100 breaststroke (1:10.92).
Karis Francis, also making her WIAA state meet debut, finished 13th in the 200 individual medley (2:19.29) and 14th in the 100 butterfly (1:02.21). By swimming a leg of the 200 freestyle relay, Karis Francis became the fourth sibling in the Francis family to win a WIAA state title. The quartet of Kiah, Nolan, Malia and Karis Francis now have 11 WIAA individual state championships to their names.
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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