Hodags swimmers place 5 in top 10 at Everest Pentathlon

Despite graduating six seniors from last season’s WIAA Division 2 state championship squad, the Rhinelander High School boys’ swim team showed last Tuesday it still has plenty of versatility entering the 2023-24 campaign.

Junior Shawn Denis led five Hodags in the top 10 of a field of more than 60 entrants in the eight-team D.C. Everest Pentathlon. 

The non-conference event featured a 50-yard race in each of the four core strokes plus a 100-yard individual medley. The cumulative time of the five events was used to calculate the final overall standings. 

Denis was fifth overall, and the second-fastest among juniors, with a combined time of 2 minutes, 49.28 seconds. He finished just ahead of junior teammates Mathias Fugle (2:50.26) in sixth and Brock Arrowood (2:51.33) in seventh. Junior Samson Shinners (2:53.76) was ninth overall and senior Zacha King (2:54.00) was 10th in a field that featured six Division 1 programs. 

“We were really pleased with how they all swam,” coach Jenny Heck said. “You never really know coming into this meet, each year’s a little bit different. The junior class is ultra strong. Zacha swam well even with his foot. He hurt it and had it taped up. We didn’t know how that would be.”

The Hodags spread the wealth around when it came to the individual events. Arrowood was Rhinelander’s top finisher in the 50 butterfly. He was tops among juniors and third-fastest overall with a time of 25.47. King, the D2 state runner-up in the 100 backstroke last February, led the Hodags in that race and was fourth fastest overall (27.45). Denis was third overall in the 50 breaststroke (30.10), Fugle was fourth overall in the 50 freestyle (23.60) and fifth-fastest in the 100 IM (1:00.04). 

“Shawn had a great meet. He’s very competitive and those guys love to race each other, try to beat each other and talk about it,” Heck said. “It’s all good because it pushes them and they all love to race. You really saw it in the 100 IM. There were some really close races and they were just really fighting for the win. I was happy to see that.”

Charlie Antonuk made his varsity debut for Rhinelander and was the fastest freshman in the field. He took 15th overall with a cumulative time of 2:59.53. He was the top freshman in every individual event except the freestyle. Freshman Judson O’Malley, working his way back from an offseason knee injury, swam only two events but was second among freshmen in the backstroke and fourth in class in the 50 freestyle. Chris Larson was the 11th fastest freshman and took 44th overall.

“Judson was amazing. He swam two events with one leg, basically,” coach Heck said. “He just dove, took a turn. Everything was really fast. For freshmen, Charlie and Chris had a great showing too.”

The Hodags had multiple top-10 finishes in each event. Fugle was seventh and Denis took eighth in the butterfly. Dolan O’Malley was the top junior in the backstroke, taking sixth overall. Denis was eighth, Arrowood was ninth and Antonuk was 10th. Fugle, Shinners and Arrowood took spots 5, 6 and 10 in the breaststroke. Shinners was fifth-fastest overall in the freestyle followed by Denis in sixth and Arrowood in eighth. Arrowood, Denis, King and Shinners finished sixth, eighth, ninth and 10th, respectively, in the IM.

“It was fun to see everyone come together and look at the overall results. It looked like we’re really well-rounded for the sprints of all strokes,” Heck said. “All those guys have been swimming a lot all year and it’s showing. They came in here and I know they’re all quite sore. We hit it hard (at practice) and have been hitting it hard in the weight room. We’re sore, but that’s OK. To swim those kind of times and they couldn’t feel much of their bodies they said after the meet. That’s OK and that’s part of it. I was very optimistic.”

D.C. Everest had the top two swimmers overall in senior David Mayer (2:36.77) and sophomore Will VanErmen (2:39.00). Eric Petrowski of Chippewa Falls was third and Gabe Secker of the Eau Claire co-op took fourth. 

The Hodags fared the best of the three GNC programs in attendance. Ben Langlois was the top finisher for the Shawano/Seymour co-op in 17th. Erza Santiago led Antigo with a 20th-place finish overall.

Rhinelander open Great Northern Conference play on the road this Thursday as it swims against Tomahawk and Medford in a double dual meet in Medford.

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].