October 14, 2021 at 8:25 a.m.
Burton Reeder returns to cheer on RHS
Hodag swimmers honor 500 freestyle record holder, beat Mosinee 137-30 to finishes 7-0 in GNC
Burton Reeder returns to cheer on RHS
Hodag alumna Karen Burton Reeder not only watched, but helped coach sophomore Abi Winnicki, who came up a little bit short in her efforts to take down Burton Reeder's pool and varsity records in the 500-yard freestyle.
The homecoming for Burton Reeder was roughly a month in the making. She witnessed the Hodags cap off their third straight undefeated Great Northern Conference dual meet season with a 137-30 victory over Mosinee in the Heck Family Community Pool.
"It is a little surprising. It's very sweet. It's a very nice thing," said Burton Reeder, who was contacted out of the blue by the team last month.
A class of 1980 graduate, Burton Reeder swam the 500 in 5 minutes 10.27 seconds in 1979 to own the varsity record and also holds the Heck Pool record at 5:13.37. Those are two of only five pool or varsity records the Hodags have not broken during a dynastic run over the last five years that culminated with a WIAA Division 2 state championship last fall.
"We're so thankful and blessed that she was willing to come all the way here and invest in us and the girls. It was a real honor for us to have her here. It made it all special tonight," Hodag coach Jenny Heck said.
Winnicki, already the school record holder in the 100 and the 200, took a crack at Burton Reeder's marks Tuesday, and was still slightly ahead of pool-record pace at the 250-yard mark before fading to a 5:26.55. Burton Reeder more than spectated during the attempt, she held Winnicki's lap counter, dipping it in the water every time Winnicki approached the far wall so she knew how far along she was in the race.
"Despite how the race turned out, it was phenomenal to have a living legend do my card and give me ideas of how to swim it next," Winnicki said. "It was a phenomenal experience and I'm definitely going to work with what she gave me and see what I can do with that."
Winnicki said she will keep some of the pointers Burton Reeder gave her on how to swim the 500 to herself, but she shared Burton's emphasis on not going out too fast, and using the third 50-yard lap of the race to set the pace for the remainder of the swim.
Those factors seemed to work against Winnicki in Tuesday's race. She went out in 27.46 over the opening 50 and had a 31.81 split over the third 50, but faded to splits in the high 33s to low 34s over the final 300 yards.
"I definitely went out too fast and just wasn't able to hold up," Winnicki said.
"I was really proud of Abi. She really hasn't been training for the 500 and we said, 'You know what, let's just see what you can do,'" coach Heck said. "I think she did one day of pace training and was doing well with it. She was happy to do it and took on the challenge. I said, 'Abi, if you want to go after this record, we'll just train you for it the next year or two.' She's got two years to get it. There's no doubt in my mind she has it in her if that's a goal of hers."
Burton Reeder said she was somewhat surprised her records have stood for more than four decades, but said it's only a matter of time before they fall.
"It's the longest event of the high school (program). I suppose that makes it a little more difficult, she said. "Somebody's going to get it. Records are made to be broken."
The members of the current RHS girls' swim team have long seen Burton Reeder's name on the record board. On a long trip down to Waukesha for a meet last month they decided to do some sleuth work to find out more about her and connect with a link to RHS swimming history.
"I think it was really fun to be all in the car together and, as we're piecing things together, figuring out who she was and where she's from and all of that was really fun," said senior Noelle St. Pierre, who did much of the research and reached out to Burton Reeder via social media.
Those conversations led to the Hodags inviting Burton Reeder to travel from her home in Colorado Springs, Colo. to take in a meet.
"If the kids are asking, that's a special thing," Burton Reeder said. "I looked at the meet schedule, said, 'This meet works,' and I tried to make it happen."
After high school, Burton Reeder went on to the Air Force Academy and then had a decorated career in open water swimming that includes three English Channel relay swimming records set in 1990 that are still on the books. She added a third-place finish in the FINA World Championships open water women's 25-kilometer swim in 1991 in Perth, Australia.
"I still liked to swim, so I just kept swimming, then one of our swimmers was going out to do this open water event and said, 'You should go. You'd be good at this,'" she said.
Burton Reeder still coaches at the club level in Colorado, and was able to sneak away from her coaching duties to come home for a couple of days.
The team presented Burton Reeder with flowers and a couple of Hodag T-shirts during a ceremony at intermission.
"I just wanted to thank everybody and I really appreciate coming from this community and all the support I've had over the years here at Rhinelander," Burton Reeder said during the ceremony.
St. Pierre said it was gratifying to connect with a link to the past of the long, storied history of the Hodag swim program.
"It's really cool to see that not only are we strong now, we've always been strong," she said. "We're currently having some legacies being created. It's fun to have them all together here."
The Hodags did not just go after the record in the 500 on Tuesday. Senior Malia Francis, who was a four-event winner on the night, narrowly missed out on the second-oldest Heck Pool record. She won the 50 freestyle with a time of 24.85, 0.10 seconds off a pool record set in 1982.
The Hodags dominated the night, taking first and second in all 11 events - including top three sweeps in five individual races.
Malia Francis added a win in the 100 freestyle while Winnicki won the 200 and the 500. Ellyse Younker won the 200 individual medley, Karis Francis took the 100 butterfly, Maria Heck won the 100 backstroke and Sam Sundby won the 100 breaststroke.
Malia Francis, Karis Francis, Younker and St. Pierre won the 200 medley relay; Genna Fugle, Karis Francis, Malia Francis and Winnicki won the 200 freestyle relay and Fugle, St. Pierre, Younker and Winnicki won the 400 freestyle relay.
Though a team can only score two relays in a dual meet, the Hodags' three relay entries in each event all came in ahead of Mosinee's top entry. Coach Heck said she wanted to create some racing opportunities between her B and C relays. The C relay got the better of the B relay in two of the three events.
"That just really shows the depth we have," she said. "These girls, sometimes they don't realize what a fast team they're on. If they were on another team, they would be some of the top swimmers on their team. We just have a lot of fast girls."
The Hodags are 27-1 in GNC duals over the last four seasons. Rhinelander will have at least a two-point lead in the conference standings heading into next Friday's GNC championship meet, which will be held in the Heck Pool.
"We're kind of coming together," coach Heck said. "We had a rough patch there with injury and sickness and I think, knock on wood, that we're over the injury and sickness and just have to build back into trying to finish off a season the way we want it to go."
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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