Making a splash: Hodag swimmers win opening Merrill Relays

The Rhinelander High School girls’ swim team showcased its depth and versatility Thursday night. The Hodags won five events, and placed second in three others, as they won the 13-team Merrill Fun in the Sun Relays at the Bierman Aquatic Center.

After finishing no better than second in the first three races, the Hodags reeled off five straight wins and then added a runner-up finish in the final race to secure a 32-point victory over defending Wisconsin Valley Conference champion Stevens Point. 

“I think our versatility really showed tonight,” Hodag coach Jenny Heck said. “We had some of the younger swimmers swimming with the older swimmers, so we were able to do really well and that was nice. We were able to just kind of see where everyone was compared to last year, and we’re very pleased with the progress they’ve made.

“We were really pleased with how our B relays did it as well. We had some 12s and 13s in there, so they were beating a lot of the other B relays and some of the As too. We’re really happy about that.”

Rhinelander showcased that depth and versatility by winning the 200-yard relay races in each of the four core strokes as well as the 400-yard individual medley relay. Ten of the 13 swimmers on the roster were part of at least one of the five relay wins.

    Rhinelander’s June Chiamulera swims butterfly during the 400-yard individual medley relay in the Fun in the Sun Relays in Merrill Thursday, Aug. 21. (Bob Mainhardt for the River News)
  

Senior Emma Houg and juniors Ella Heck and Vivian Lamers were all part of three winning relays. The three teamed with junior June Chiamulera to take the 400 IM relay (4 minutes, 38.07 seconds). Heck and Houg were part of the winning 200 butterfly relay (1:54.55), Heck and Lamers were on the winning 200 breaststroke relay (2:19.05), Lamers was part of the winning 200 freestyle relay (1:48.10) and Houg was on the winning 200 backstroke relay (1:57.08).

Senior Millie Gruett and junior Rylee Mickevicius were both part of the winning 200 butterfly and 200 backstroke relays. Gruett entered the water 0.13 seconds behind Stevens Point’s Claire Lemke in the fly relay but rallied her team to victory thanks to a 27.56-second split over the final 50 yards. 

“I think they had a lot of really great races somewhere you know come from behind and those were fun. I guess that’s what’s all about — racing and trying to get to the wall first,” coach Heck said. “I keep track of how they did last year, for the returning swimmers, kind of what they were you know what in season times were and I was really pleased. I think they were all like right at if not faster than where we were (last year) for those times. That’s exactly where you want to be. I think it was really optimistic for us as a team and I think they were all really excited.”

Freshman Lola Beach was on two winning relays in her varsity debut. She was a part of the 200 freestyle and 200 breaststroke relays. Another freshman, Aubree Edwardson, was also on the 200 free relay. Coach Heck said the freshmen acquitted themselves well in their first high school meet.

“I think they were excited,” she said. “When you’re freshman, you don’t really know what to expect. They’re just kind of taking one race at a time and they don’t really know what hits them, but you know I think that they handled it really well they seemed calm, cool and collected, and also like they were having a lot of fun.”

Chiamulera was the fourth member of the winning 200 freestyle relay, junior Kiley Pooch was part of the winning 200 backstroke relay and junior Kyree McMahon was on the winning 200 breaststroke relay.

Pooch, Ella Heck, Gruett and Chiamulera swam to a runner-up finish in the 200 medley relay to start the event (1:53.82). Gruett, Pooch, Beech and Mickevicius were second in the 500 crescendo freestyle relay — where each leg is 50 yards longer than the previous (5:11.53). Pooch, Mickevicius, Chiamulera and Lamers came home second in the 400 freestyle relay (3:57.41) to close out the night. 

Essentially all Rhinelander needed to do by that point was get one of its two relays to the wall without disqualifying to secure the meet title, as Stevens Point entered the final event trailing Rhinelander by 38 points. 

Thursday’s meet featured the majority of the teams from the Wisconsin Valley and Great Northern conferences. Wausau West took third, followed by D.C. Everest.

Lakeland was the second-highest finishing GNC school in the field, finishing fifth, followed by GNC newcomer Merrill (sixth), Colby/Abbotsford (seventh), Tomahawk (ninth), Ladysmith (10th), Antigo (12th) and Mosinee (13th). Medford was the only GNC school not in attendance. 

The Hodags traveled to Menomonie on Saturday for an invitational. Visit RiverNewsOnline.com for a brief recap of that meet and read a full report in Friday’s River News. 

Rhinelander’s next meet takes place Wednesday when it hosts the 10-team Hodag Relays at the Heck Family Community Pool. The event is earlier in the season this year, and has attracted one of the largest fields it has seen in several years.

“It’ll be 10 teams and probably the biggest meet we’ve hosted I would say,” coach Heck said. “We’re really looking forward to it. It should be interesting with all the construction at high school. Hopefully it won’t slow us down too much, but there will be a lot of buses there and it’ll be a fun day and we’re really looking forward it.”

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].