Hodag swim claims all 11 events, GNC title

MEDFORD — The Rhinelander High School boys’ swim team brought out its mascot for the Great Northern Conference swim meet on Groundhog’s Day and it saw its shadow. 

The rest of the GNC can only hope that doesn’t mean six more years of domination by the Hodags. 

Rhinelander was once again the class of the Great Northern on Friday, winning all 11 events as it rolled to its sixth straight conference championship at the GNC meet in Medford. The Hodags took the meet by a whopping 160 points over runner-up Tomahawk.

Not only did Rhinelander win all 11 events, it swept the top two spots in six events, and took the top three spots in the 50-yard freestyle. Rhinelander had 19 all-conference swims out of its 21 entries and nearly had a perfect meet — scoring 372 out of a possible 379 points it could have accumulated with its lineup. 

“That’s kind of what I imagined tonight would be a little bit like. I was really happy with some of those times,” Hodag coach Jenny Heck said. 

    Rhinelander’s Zacha King heads toward the wall to finish the 100-yard backstroke during the GNC championship boys’ swim meet in Medford Friday, Feb. 2. King won the event in a conference-record time of 53.72 seconds. (Jeremy Mayo/River News)
  

Rhinelander’s Zacha King became the new conference record-holder in the 100 backstroke, winning that event in a time of 53.72 seconds. That time eclipsed the mark of 54.13 set by Rhinelander’s Nolan Francis back in 2019. 

“I’m ecstatic that I got that 100 backstroke,” King said. “It hurt. For about 53.7 seconds, it hurt. But once I finished and looked at the board and focused my eyes enough to actually see it, oh man, that made all the hurt go away.”

“For Zacha to get that conference record, I knew we had a chance at a lot of them but if we only had to get one, that was the one to get,” Heck said. “I was really happy for him because that meant a lot to him, a lot to us. It’s a fast record and to do it not rested and not in a fast suit is really impressive. After that first 50 I knew he was going to get it. He took it out. He was aggressive. I could tell, the look in his eye he was going to get it. He wanted it.”

Junior Samson Shinners was the Hodags lone four-event winner on the night. He swam to the win in the 200 freestyle (1:49.57) and then edged teammate Mathias Fugle for the win in the 100 freestyle (50.21) by 0.19 seconds. Shinners was also on the Hodags’ winning 200 and 400 freestyle relay teams. 

Junior Shawn Denis also captured a pair of individual events. He beat teammate Dolan O’Malley by roughly three seconds (2:05.91) to take the 200 individual medley and then fended off what proved to be the biggest threat to the Hodags’ clean sweep in the 100 breaststroke. Denis took the win in that event (1:03.06) by 3.51 seconds over Tomahawk’s Zach Germano.

Rhinelander aimed for the conference record in all three relays, but came up a little bit short. The team of King, Denis, Brock Arrowood and Dolan O’Malley claimed the 200 medley relay (1:42.23), about 2.2 seconds off the record. The Hodags missed by 0.71 seconds in the 200 freestyle relay with the team of Dolan O’Malley, Denis, Shinners and Fugle (1:32.23). Arrowood, King, Fugle and Shinners won the 400 freestyle relay (3:24.38), roughly two seconds off the yard-pool record in the event. 

“The relays were all close and all within a shot (at the record). We just missed out on all of them, but still great effort and great positioning for next weekend,” Heck said.

Arrowood (54.63) edged King for the win by 0.67 seconds in the 100 butterfly while Fugle (22.83) led the sweep in the 100 with Judson O’Malley and Charlie Antonuk.

The 500-yard freestyle was the only event on the night where Rhinelander did not enter as the favorite — mainly because Judson O’Malley had not competed in the event this season and did not have a seed time as a result. Swimming from the outside lane, O’Malley established the early lead and cruised to the win (5:35.90), coming in 14 1/2 seconds ahead of runner-up Bruce Peetz of Tomahawk.

“We knew he could do it. He just had such a slow start to the season because of his injury so we didn’t even get a chance to put him in it (during the season),” Heck said. “We thought this would be a perfect event for him. He had three relays plus the 500. It worked out really well. He was game for it and what a way to start out as a freshman.”

Arrowood, Antonuk, Chris Larson and Judson O’Malley made up Rhinelander’s runner-up squad in the 200 freestyle relay while both O’Malley brothers, Larson and Antonuk took second in the 400 freestyle relay.

Antonuk added one more all-conference swim for the Hodags, taking third in the 100 breaststroke, while Larson added a fourth-place swim in the 100 backstroke and a sixth in the 200 freestyle. 

“He’s going for that automatic lettering time in the backstroke,” Heck said of Larson, a first-year swimmer. “He’s in range for next weekend so we hope he gets that. He keeps dropping and he said he’s had so much fun and that’s what it’s all about — having fun and seeing that hard work pays off and having a group to share it with.”

Rhinelander now turns its attention to the postseason where it will look to claim a sixth straight WIAA Division 2 sectional title this coming Saturday in Ashwaubenon. Rhinelander figures to be the team to beat, but could be pushed by the hosting Jaguars as well as River Falls, which dropped back to Division 2 this year after being in D1 a season ago.

“I think we’re feeling pretty good. We’re hoping for good things at sectionals,” King said. “We had a dual against Ashwaubenon earlier in the season. We beat them by a little bit but we’ve got some D1 competition coming down, so it’s going to be a bit tougher this year.” 

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].