With heavy hearts, Hawks place fourth

Posted: Feb. 22, 2010

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Russ Pulvermacher/Photographer

Brandon Stedman swims the breaststroke at state for the combined Waukesha North/Kettle Moraine team.

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Russ Pulvermacher/Photographer

Brandon Stedman swims the breaststroke at state for the combined Waukesha North/Kettle Moraine team.

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On paper, Arrowhead's fourth-place finish at Saturday's WIAA Division 1 boys state swimming championships would appear to be a little bit disappointing. But when you consider what the No. 2-ranked Warhawks went through last week, the AHS boys did just fine.

In the middle of the week, the Warhawks were forced to deal with the sudden death of sophomore swimmer Grant Thomann, a shock to the team and entire AHS community.

"I'm proud of each and every guy on this team for swimming as well as they could, considering what they had to go through with Grant's passing," said Arrowhead coach Bob Jenkyns. "It was definitely a tough meet for us. … but in the end, I thought our kids did a great job. To swim as well as they did with what went on, it's a credit to each and every one of them."

Arrowhead's biggest rival this season, the combined team from Waukesha South/Catholic Memorial, captured its first state crown with an outstanding performance. Of 197 points. Other schools in the top five were Madison Memorial at 183, Greenfield/Greendale 173, Arrowhead 171 and Sauk Prairie/Wisconsin Heights 166. It was the second straight year the Warhawks finished in fourth place.

"In all my years, I've never seen a scoreboard change as much as it did this year," added Jenkyns, in his 23rd year as coach. "Every event, teams were being taken down and new teams were being put up. The scoreboard was flip-flopping all day. That tells you right there how balanced the competition was. Swimmers from all over the state were getting on the podium."

The first event of the swimming portion of the meet, the 200-yard medley, pretty much told the story for the Warhawks. Undefeated in that race all season, the Warhawks finished second, despite being seeded No. 1 by almost one full second. The team of Chris Jenkyns, Brent Schreibel, Cody Roller and Jake Prodoehl swam a time of 1:37.53. Sauk Prairie/Wisconsin Heights won that race at 1:35.53 despite coming in with the seventh seed.

"I think not winning that race hurt us a lot," Jenkyns said. "We hadn't lost all year, and that one got us started slower than we had thought. We just never got any momentum going until late in the meet."

Ten of Arrowhead's entries came in with top-eight spots, but only seven finished in the top eight.

Chris Jenkyns, the senior son of the Arrowhead coach, had the two best finishes for AHS with a third in the 100 backstroke (53.19) and fifth in the 500 freestyle (4:43.65).

Schreibel finished sixth in the 100 breaststroke (59.91), and Roller was eighth (53.94) in the backstroke. Prodoehl added an eighth (1:44.88) in the 200 freestyle. The 400 free relay of Prodoehl, Roller, Jenkyns and Mark Tomkiewicz took sixth in 3:13.83.

Others scoring points were Schreibel in the 200 free (15th), Roller in the IM (15th), Prodoehl in the 500 free (11th), the 200 free relay of Nick Clawson, Tomkiewicz, Scott Barbee and Schreibel (9th), Evan Barta in the backstroke (10th), Barbee in the backstroke (11th) and Matt Ahnen in the backstroke (12th).

"We had high hopes of winning it all this year, but things didn't go as planned." Bob Jenkyns said. "What our kids had to go through this week is something they'll learn a lot from. It's disappointing not to win, but our guys did the best they could. It was a very tough week for all of us."

North/KM competes

Waukesha North/Kettle Moraine swimmers also competed in the state meet. Billy Fank placed 19th in the diving competition, and Brandon Stedman finished 18th in the breaststroke.