Posted: Nov. 3, 2009 |(0) Comments

Germantown girls swim

A picture is worth a thousand words.

That's what Warhawks girls swim coach Sara Petric thought after she posed for a photo with senior leaders Marin Thompson and Shannon Miller after Petric had been honored with North Shore Conference coach of the year honors at Saturday's league meet at Nicolet.

"They gave me a nice little plaque and everything," said Petric. "It was quite an honor."

Petric got the award for a number of reasons, including building the numbers of an essentially homeless team (practicing at three different sites) that included quite a number of freshmen, with no real feeder program to work with.

"She did a nice job with them," said Petric's old coach at Homestead Mark Gwidt. "It's tough finding them places to go."

Thompson won the 100 butterfly (59.25 seconds) and Miller the 50 free (25.44) as the Warhawks finished sixth with 214 points as Homestead won its 10th title in a row with 475.

Thompson was also second in the 200 individual medley (2:17.14) and Miller sixth in the 100 backstroke (1:05.07). Kelly Theis was third in both the 200 (1:59.67) and 500 (5:21.05) freestyles. Abby Schabel was fourth in the 100 butterfly (1:03.37).

Others picked out for praise included Lindsey Smith (15th in the backstroke) and Tess Van Hecke (12th) and Alyssa Pusa (13th) in diving.

Other good swims were turned in by Kate Benson, Katie Brown, Emily Riesterer, Kayla Peplinski, Hannah Kurtenbach, Maggie Smith, and Lauren Utech.

Petric was pleased with all the performances considering that much of the team had one form of the flu or the other in the last few weeks.

The Warhawks will participate in WIAA sectional competition at Cedarburg this weekend. Diving will be at 6 p.m. Friday and swimming at noon Saturday. The winner of each event plus the next 18 best performances from all sectionals statewide will advance to the WIAA State Division I meet in Madison on Nov. 14.

Germantown boys cross country

The Warhawks simply didn't have enough up-top speed to break into the top half of the WIAA State Meet field Saturday in Wisconsin Rapids, as they had to settle for 17th of 20.

"It wasn't a real good day," said Warhawks coach Andy Bavlnka. "The course was a bit wet and my guys tend to go out a bit slowly anyway. We're just not fast enough to go 5:15 in the first mile and at the Ridges, if you don't get out, you really can't compete."

The Warhawks turned in a 379 point total as Brookfield Central edged Greater Metro rival Marquette, 99-115, for the title.

Tim Trapp would have been on pace for a top 15 finish but lost a shoe partway through the race and had to settle for 23rd on the 5,000-meter course (16:37). And after Trapp, things dropped off in a hurry for Germantown, as Kenny Haferkorn was 83rd (17:37), Nick Skidmore, battling a bad hip, was 86th (17:39), Muzahir Badani 94th (17:42), Ben Baus 102nd (17:51), Kyle Hartmann 109th (17:57) and Tim Lydy 113th (17:59).

Bavlnka said that on a better day the Warhawks would have been much closer to seventh-place Arrowhead (235), to which Germantown lost a close decision to at sectional the previous week.

Still, Bavlnka was happy that the Warhawks made state for the second year in a row. Seniors on the state unit included Haferkorn, Skidmore and Hartmann. The team shouldn't miss a beat, however, as they were also dominant in North Shore junior varsity competition.

"We still have a lot to look forward to," Bavlnka said. "We had about 40 kids out with 13 freshmen."

Falls boys cross country

The Indians season came to a positive conclusion as senior Nate Paulson was 84th and junior P.J. Weyer was 94th in the 180-man plus WIAA State Division I race in Wisconsin Rapids on Saturday.

"The guys didn't do a bad job," said Indians coach Jim Geisthardt. "They maybe could have done a little better but you have to get out fast on that course as there is no room to pass people."

Paulson was clocked in 17:10 and Weyer in 17:17 for their spots on the Ridges Golf Course layout. Greater Metro rival Marcus Paulson of Hamilton won in 15:41.

"It was fun watching our guys finish," Geisthardt said. "They were duking it out for awhile back and forth until the last 500 meters or so when Nate finally got P.J."

The meet concludes a positive season for the Indians, which included a strong team finish in the WIAA sectional race the week before. Seniors on the 25-man team included Paulson, Ben Bartos, Tyler Wittmann and Ryan Birschbach.

"We're going to go out there and recruit and recruit and recruit," Geisthardt said.

Falls girls volleyball

The Indians netters just got a good look at a new state power on the rise when it dropped a 25-23, 25-22, 25-20 WIAA sectional semifinal decision to Nicolet on Oct. 29 at Watertown.

"We ran into a buzz saw offensively with (outside hitter) Melissa Morello," said Falls coach J.C. Bruns. "We watched her on film and knew what she was going to do, but we couldn't set the block up fast enough to deal with her. ... Still, I was very proud of the kids tonight. We showed tremendous leadership. There was no quit in these players, and they showed a lot of maturity."

The Knights took it another step further on Saturday knocking off second-ranked in state Watertown in a thrilling five-game sectional final.

"Two years ago, when we lost to Falls (in sectional semifinals), they were the better team," said Knights coach Dann Jacobson, "… but this is a different team now."

The two-time North Shore Conference champs gained an edge in every game, forcing the smaller and less experienced Greater Metro runner-up Indians to play catch-up each time out.

But the feisty Falls team made the Knights work every time. Nicolet was up 22-17 in the first game, but a 5-1 Indians run closed it to 23-22, before Nicolet pulled it out.

In game two, the Knights looked brilliant early, taking a 9-1 advantage and holding a 16-6 edge at one point, but then Falls roared back with a 13-2 run to take a 19-18 lead. The game seesawed down the stretch, before a Sam Lautmann kill and a Katelyn Richards ace did the trick.

The scenario repeated itself in game three, as Nicolet took a 13-5 lead only to see Falls, behind the hitting of Catie Fredrich and Rebecca Fuchs, tie it back up at 14 apiece. But two big blocks by the Knights capped a 6-0 run a short time later as they were finally able to close out the Indians.

"All credit to Nicolet, they played awesome," said Bruns. "It wasn't like two teams were playing poorly out there. It's just that you had one team at the top of its game (Nicolet) while we were just a little off."

Seniors for the Indians included Fredrich, Alaina Defnet, Danielle Hartmann and Brittany Trzebiatowski.

 

- Steven L. Tietz