Wisconsin High School Girls’ Swimming & Diving State Championship Meet
- Saturday, November 16, 2024
- Waukesha South High School Natatorium, Waukesha, Wisconsin
- Short Course Yards (25 yards), Timed Finals
- Full Meet Results (PDF)
The Middleton High School girls won their 2nd consecutive Wisconsin High School State Championship, and 5th overall, on Saturday in Waukesha. They previously three-peated from 2016 through 2018.
D1 is for Wisconsin’s largest high schools and co-ops.
This year’s win was a very different one from last year. Last year, the meet came down to the final relay on a four team battle, with Middleton winning by just 10.5 points over Verona Area – in spite of not winning any events. While the Cardinals graduated their top individual scorer from that team (Tait Haag, currently a freshman at Kansas), that was overall a relatively-young team.
This year, that young core hit its stride, and the Middleton one was a dominant one, beating runners-up Verona Area by 123 points. That is the biggest margin at the D1 Championships since the 2019 meet.
They set the tone early with a 1:42.72 in the 200 medley relay, winning by more than two seconds ahead of the runners-up for Muskego. The team of Tae Martin (back – 26.03), Rian Jost (breast – 29.26), Brynn Sundell (fly – 24.79) and Sulia Miller (free – 22.65) comfortably cleared the field. That relay included one freshman, two sophomores, and a junior, and only two seniors scored for them (individually or in relays) so Middleton might be setting up for another threepeat at next year’s meet.
“It really motivated our team to have a positive start,” Sundell told Madison.com. “Going into the race, I was confident in my team and I knew we could win this. I knew that I could count on my team to give us a lead and I could bring it all together.”
Martin, the newcomer, focused exclusively on backstroke races at the meet, finishing 7th in the 100 in 56.31. A big fall season for her was a surprise boost for the Cardinals, and she could become a star of the future for this team after dropping 2.6 seconds in the 100 back in the fall semester of her freshman season already.
Jost, a sophomore, likewise was 7th in the 100 breast (1:04.46), her only other event, demonstrating a team deep enough for specialists like these.
Sundell, a sophomore, was 2nd in the 500 free (4:56.72) and 5th in the 200 IM (2:04.14), while Miller, a junior, was 2nd in the 50 free (23.06) and 6th in the 100 free (51.79). Those were both big best times for her as she begins to enter the heart of the recruiting cycle for the class of 2026.
While Middleton still didn’t win any individual events, their relays showed up big. Miller (23.52), senior Audrey Alexander (23.89), freshman Abigail Frommelt (23.66), and another freshman Jane Garlock (22.83) led the team to another victory (.99 seconds) in the 200 free relay.
Germantown didn’t have the depth through the middle legs to keep up with Middletown, but did record the only two 22-second splits of that relay, senior leadoff Julia Saxman (22.89) and junior anchor Caden Kelly (22.66) to finish 2nd in 1:34.89.
Saxman, a University of Denver commit, won the 200 IM in 2:01.54. That knocked nearly three seconds off her best time from September and a whopping eight seconds off her best coming into the season. Recruited as a sprinter, that breakthrough for Saxman is a huge addition for Denver, which doesn’t have a 200 IMer under 2:04 yet this season.
She also won the 100 fly in 53.34 after placing 4th last season. That represents a two second drop over last season.
Middleton capped the meet with another authoritative win, this time in the 400 free relay in 3:26.24. The team of Abigail Frommelt (52.02), her older sister Isabell (53.08), Garlock (50.51), and Sundell (50.63) combined for the win.
Garlock’s split was the second-best of the field behind only Oregon junior Alyse Block who anchored their third-place relay in 50.29.
The best sprinter in the meet was DeForest senior Payton Flowers, though her team only qualified a 200 medley relay so she didn’t get to swim in either of those free relays.
Individually, Flowers won the 50 free in 22.59 and the 100 free in 49.34.
The Iowa commit was 7th in both races last year, and this year’s times both cleared her personal bests – which were set at this meet last year.
Middleton didn’t win either race, but again cleaned up big points with the junior Miller and freshman Garlock taking 2nd and 3rd in the 50 and the freshman Garlock taking 2nd in the 100 (50.12).
Other Event Winners
- Ella Antoniewski from the Waukesha South/Mukwango Co-Op successfully defended two state titles. First she won the 200 free in 1:48.38, over two seconds clear of the field, and then she won the 500 free in 4:50.81, almost five seconds clear. She is a perfect three-for-three in her career in both events, though her times in both events were faster in her freshman and sophomore seasons. She committed to Georgia a week before the state meet.
- Appleton North senior Ana Flanagan won the tightest battle of the day in the 100 breaststroke. She touched in 1:03.20 to upset last year’s runner-up Annika Curran (2nd – 1:03.34) from Verona Area. Curran made a furious charge on the back-half, closing the full-second deficit at the 50 yard mark, but ultimately misjudged the race (she was out in 29.5 last year, but only 30.1 this year). The 3rd through 8th place finishers in the race were spread by only three-tenths of a second from 1:04.19 to 1:04.56.
- Oregon High School junior Olivia Sina won the 100 back in 54.53, another tight race late in the meet. Waukesha South/Mukwonago freshman Avery Antoniewski, the younger sister of Ella, was 2nd in 54.72. This race was up-for-grabs after the top two, including state record breaker Maggie Wanezek, graduated. Sina was the only of the top four returning from last season.
- Divine Savior Holy Angels’ Kendall Rummel won 1-meter diving with a score of 477.65, just out-scoring Germantown senior Fynn Langley (473.55). This is where Middleton will lose the most points next season, graduating a pair of top 8 finishers.
A video of Rummel’s title-winning dives is below:
