Marshfield Takes Second at Conference

The Marshfield Tigers swam to a second place finish in the Wisconsin Valley Conference meet over the weekend.  Rhinelander won the meet with 530 points, Marshfield was second with 395.  Going into the 100 Breast Marshfield was trailing Stevens Point by 20 points. All three breaststrokers, John Welch, Dennis Evert and Ian Marks defeated all three of Stevens Point's swimmers to secure Marshfield's second place finish. Top individual results for Marshfield included John Welch who was second in the 100 Breastroke.  Welch was out touched by a Rhinelander swimmer in the Breast after just competing in the 500 Free. Aaron Cummings won the 200 I.M. and the 100 Back.  The 400 Free Relay was the highlight of the night. After being seeded fourth in the 400 Free Relay the team of Gene Chyou, Alex Larson, John Welch and Aaron Cummings stormed from behind to place second. Chyou and Larson dropped nearly a second off their best 100 free times to boost the relay to second.  A lot of swimmers had personal best swims. Dennis Evert probably had the best night after dropping 7 seconds off his best time in the 200 I.M and then posting the top relay split in the 200 Free Relay for the Tigers.  Evert also dropped a second off his best time this season in the 100 Breast. Freshman Eric Kling would win the award for most time dropped after he improved an amazing 12 seconds in his 500 Free. Coach Al Nienest praised the swimmers for their efforts. " This was a team effort today. We were hoping to be closer to Rhinelander but they are a really tough team. Our goal was to at least place in the top two team wise and thats what we did. All of our seniors swam well but we needed the underclassmen to step up if we were going to have a shot. A couple relays are in the position to qualify for state so now we have to focus on sectionals. The guys are ready, most of them are tapering for sectionals with a few tapering for state. But either way we should see some fast times next weekend."   The Tigers will be in Eau Claire next weekend for Sectionals.