Team review: RHS girls’ swimming

When addressing the Rhinelander High School girls’ swim team after its WIAA Division 2 state championship, city administrator Patrick Reagan delivered a line that resonated through the Jim Miazga Community Gymnasium.

“The bar for excellence is not hoped for by Rhinelander, it’s set by Rhinelander,” he said.

This year’s Hodag swim team set the bar so high it will likely be the standard bearer for years, if not decades, to come. 

That will certainly be the case for the outgoing class of seniors who, in their four years, collected two WIAA state titles, a runner-up finish at state, four sectional championship and four Great Northern Conference titles.

The 2023 season was the culmination of all of that for the Hodags, who not only dominated the Great Northern Conference season and won all but one non-conference meet. They went on to win every swimming event at sectionals and six of the 12 events at state. 

While this year’s Hodag team left a legacy that will carry on well beyond their years at RHS, coach Jenny Heck said she hopes this team’s legacy is simpler than that.

“I want to be known as a really strong team from northern Wisconsin with a bunch of really nice girls,” she said, moments after becoming just the third coach in state history to guide a boys’ and a girls’ swim team to a WIAA state title in the same calendar year.

Here are five storylines from the recently completed season.

Local dominance

While the northern part of the state had some strong swimmers this season — a fact underscored by collecting eight of the 16 entries into the 200-yard individual medley at the state meet — no team in the area came close to matching the talent and the depth the Hodags had. 

During Great Northern Conference action, Rhinelander became just the second team in league history to win all 11 races in all seven dual meets. The only other team to accomplish that was Rhinelander, during its 2020 state championship year. 

In the process, the Hodags did something the GNC had never seen in either boys’ or girls’ swimming — a perfect team score in a dual meet. 

The Hodags first hit the 140-point mark Sept. 28 during a home dual meet against Mosinee, and then they did it again in the conference dual meet finale against Antigo Oct. 16. 

A couple of wins by Tomahawk’s Paige Dekiep kept Rhinelander from becoming the first team to sweep all 11 events at the GNC championship, but the Hodags still flexed plenty of muscle there, setting five meet records and sweeping the top three spots in the 200 and 400 freestyle relays with its A, B and C entries.

“To see 12 of our Rhinelander kids out there swimming and going 1-2-3 was pretty amazing. It just shows our true depth and how strong we are, not just with our top swimmers but all the way through,” coach Heck said. 

The local dominance continued a couple of weeks later as Rhinelander took all 11 swimming events at sectionals, including a first-place tie in the 50 freestyle as freshman Vivian Lamers hit the wall in a dead heat with Dekiep. Sophomore Emma Houg added a win by 0.05 seconds in the 500 freestyle that day.

“I’ve never experienced anything like that before with this strength,” coach Heck said of the sectional sweep. “I guess we never really think about that because we have so many goals within the goal. To actually sit and think about that, it’s pretty amazing. 

September scramble

Rhinelander set itself up for a postseason run with a whirlwind schedule of eight meets during the month of September. In addition to four conference dual meets the Hodags spent four straight Saturdays competing in invitationals. Rhinelander won three of those — taking their home relays Sept. 9, the Jefferson/Cambridge Invite Sept. 23 and the Fond du Lac Invite Sept. 30. 

The only meet the Hodags did not win all season was the Waukesha South Invite Sept. 16. Even then, the Hodags finished third that day, outscoring the reigning Division 1 and 2 state champions from 2022. The only two schools that beat Rhinelander — Middleton and Verona — finished 1-2 at the Division 1 state meet earlier this month. 

By the class

Rhinelander had 16 swimmers this year. Though only 11 were able to swim sectionals due to the limit on entries at that meet, and 10 qualified for state through their performance at sectionals, all 16 made contributions throughout the season. All 16 were apart of winning relays during the Hodag Relays and all 16 were either all-conference recipients or would have been all-conference recipients had the Hodags been allowed to score three relay entries per event at conference. 

The squad had a symmetrical split — six seniors, two juniors, two sophomores and six freshmen — and each class made a significant impact. 

Abi Winnicki and Karis Francis headlined the senior class. The two swimmers, who are both going on to swim collegiately with Division I programs, had a litany of accomplishments during their careers. Winnicki was a 16-time conference champ and a school-record holder in five events. Francis won all four events at state, a feat that had only been accomplished once previously in program history, by her older sister Malia Francis in 2020.  

The remaining seniors — Sam Sundby, Abbie Ames, Margaret Lambert and Claire Caselton — were all on third-place relays at conference. Lambert and Sundby took fifth in the 100 backstroke and 100 breaststroke, respectively, at conference. 

Juniors Ellyse Younker and Lily Thorsen were not only relay state champions —Thorsen in the 200 freestyle and Younker in both the 200 freestyle and 200 medley — they both scored top eight finishes in individual events at state. Younker with seventh in the 100 butterfly and Thorsen took eighth in the 200 IM. 

Sophomore Millie Gruett became an event state champion, swimming the anchor leg of the 200 medley relay at state. She also finished 10th in the butterfly, despite entering sectionals outside of the top 16 projected to qualify in that event. Houg made it to state in an individual event for the first time thanks to her win in the 500 freestyle at sectionals.

Celia Francis became the first Hodag freshman to win an individual event at state, taking the victory in the 200 individual medley. She added a runner-up finish in the 100 backstroke and was on the winning 200 medley and 200 and 400 freestyle relays. Fellow freshman Vivian Lamers had a strong debut. She took third in the 50 freestyle, fifth in the 100 freestyle and was on the championship-winning 200 and 400 freestyle relays. June Chiamulera and Ella Heck qualified individually in the 100 freestyle and 100 breaststroke, respectively. Kiley Pooch posted a time faster than the 2022 state cut in the 100 backstroke but just missed making this year’s field of 16. Rylee Mickevicius was part of top-three finishes in all three relays at conference and added a fourth-place swim in the 100 butterfly.

For the record

The Hodags put up 15 new marks that will go up on the record board inside the Heck Family Community Pool with five new pool records, five conference records and five varsity records.

After a number at the longest-standing varsity record, Winnicki finally took down Karen Burton-Reeder’s 1979 school mark in the 500 freestyle when she went 5:07.99 in a home dual meet against Mosinee on Sept. 28. That mark will stand, along with her converted time of 5:06.12 in the 400-meter freestyle during the GNC in Antigo in October. 

Karis Francis was part of set four school records at state —the 100 butterfly (56.05), the 100 breaststroke (1:03.99), the 200 medley relay (1:45.63) and the 400 freestyle relay (3:30.61). Celia Francis, Younker and Gruett were also part of the 200 medley record while Lamers, Celia Francis and Winnicki were part of the 400 freestyle record. 

Additionally, the Hodags set pool records in the 200 medley relay (1:48.14), the 100 freestyle (Winnicki, 52.92), the 500 freestyle, the 100 breaststroke (Karis Francis, 1:06.24) and the 400 freestyle relay (3:38.10).

In addition to Winnicki’s mark in the 400-meter/500-yard freestyle, Rhinelander set conference records in the 200 individual medley (Winnicki, 2:09.77), the 100 breaststroke (Karis Francis, 1:05.22), the 200 freestyle relay (1:38.38) and the 400 freestyle relay (3:36.17). Because those records were set in a meter pool, the previous records set in yard pools will also be retained. Regardless, Rhinelander still holds the conference record in all 11 swimming events. 

What’s next

While this year’s success will be difficult to replicate — losing top-end swimmers Winnicki and Karis Francis to graduation — there will still be plenty of talent returning for the Hodags. The returning group of swimmers accounted four nine combined gold medals and three other podium finishes at state this year. So don’t expect Rhinelander’s string of dominance to end any time soon.

“We’ve got a great group, a great dedication and we’re running with it when we’ve got it,” coach Heck said. “It won’t always be this way, but I’m going to push it as long as we can. 

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].