By Jed Buelow
Tomahawk Leader Co-Editor, Sports, Nature Editor
It was a busy week for the Tomahawk girls’ swim team as they finished out the regular season against Rhinelander before heading to Shorewood to compete in the prestigious Small School State Invite. This meet is extremely important to DII teams as it is a pre-curser to who will be the top competitors at the WIAA state meet.
Tomahawk had to sacrifice a practice on Friday to drive down early to Milwaukee so Karlie Woodall could prepare for a 7:30 a.m. warm-up session. Practicing on average one day a week, she managed a 10th place finish out of 16 competitors.
Scoring for the Hatchets were Kylee Theiler, Molly Mott and Megan Miles. The 200-yard free relay team needed an alternate as Dallas Dosch stayed home with family medical issues. Taya Johnson stepped up and swam in Dosch’s place and helped the team to a 7th place finish, which would be the highest placement for the relays over the weekend.
Theiler tried the nearly impossible at Shorewood, swimming a 100 free to go along with being a 500 free entry.
“This is unheard of, yet she wanted to try it. I supported it, but then she also swam the anchor leg of the 200 free relay,” Hatchet coach Theresa L’Esperance said. “She swam back-to-back-to-back. No other athlete in the pool stepped up to this challenge. I thought coming off an extremely heavy yardage week, a 3rd and 2nd place finish was extremely good.”
Earlier in the week Tomahawk traveled to Rhinelander for the final GNC meet of the season where they set 13 personal records set in a loss to the undefeated Hodags.
Theiler, Annie Begotka, Joanna Phillips and Brynnen Stefan set two or more personal records and Megan Miles and Abbey Jaecks also set new personal records in Rhinelander. K. Theiler also set another pool record in Hodag Country beating a record that stood since 2008 in the 100 free.
The Lady Hatchets will be back in action Friday, Nov. 1 as they travel to UW-Stevens Point to take part in the GNC Meet that is being hosted by Medford that begins at 5 p.m.