After a very competitive year, the pressure was on the MHS Girls Swim Team to dominate at the end of the 2023 fall season. The previous year, the team placed 4th overall with 182.5 points. In first was Arrowhead, with runners up Brookfield East and Waukesha West. The Verona Wildcats were just behind Middleton in fifth place.
Middleton had an undefeated dual meet season, beating competitors Verona Wildcats by just 5 points. The team also won first place at the Big 8 Junior Varsity Conference Invitational and the Big 8 Varsity Conference Championships. Despite being seeded to place second, Middleton took home gold at the WIAA Division 1 Sectional Championship Meet. This made excitement very high going into the state meet.
The WIAA Girls Division 1 State Championship took place at Waukesha South High School, and started the evening of Nov. 10 with Diving. After three rounds, Olivia Davis (11) had a final score of 406.60, winning eighth place overall and setting Middleton up for success going into the swim competition.
The swimming events began on Nov. 11 with the 200 Medley relay. This event consists of 50 yards of each stroke swam by a different athlete. Middleton’s relay of Lily Mair (12), Rian Jost (9), Brynn Sundell (9) and Piper García Hall (12) went a 1:45.39, almost a second faster than their seed time, securing their fifth place spot. With the Verona Wildcats finishing just 0.01 seconds behind them, this race foreshadowed a competitive rest of the meet.
The next event was the 200-yard freestyle, in which Middleton had many great races. Seeded sixth and seventh respectively was senior Tait Haag and freshman Brynn Sundell.
Coach RJ Leiferman commented that Haag “had the best meet we [had] ever seen her do,” shaving off over two seconds from her seed time with a 1:50.85 and placing third.
Sundell placed sixth, also moving up from where she was seeded. Junior Audrey Alexander secured her ninth place seed with a time of 1:53.23.
The next event Middleton competed in was the 50-yard freestyle, with sophomore Sulia Miller and senior Piper García Hall. Miller scored eighth with a 23.80, and García Hall tied for 11th with a 23.96. Both swimmers moved up from where they were seeded, scoring 16.5 points collectively. Miller and García Hall also raced in the 100-yard freestyle, alongside teammate Audrey Alexander. The three all placed in the top 16, scoring 19 points altogether. Miller placed ninth, García Hall placed 11th and Alexander placed 13th.
The 50 and 100 freestyle races were “the two biggest events where we picked up points…after the 100 free we were feeling really good about having a chance to win the meet,” Leiferman said.
The 100 Butterfly was another great event for the Cardinals. Junior Isabell Frommelt went a 58.79 and placed 20th, while senior Lily Mair went a 59.39, placing 23rd.
The 500-yard freestyle scored a total of 31 points for MHS with three swimmers: Tait Haag (12), Brynn Sundell (9) and Hannah Machleidt (11). Shaving 5 seconds off her seed time and placing second was Haag, with Sundell just behind her in fifth place.
Leiferman applauded the star freshman’s incredible races. “Brynn was incredible the entire meet…to get on the podium in both your events as a freshman is pretty rare,” he said. Machleidt also had a great race, going a time of 5.19.43 and placing 24th.
Following that was the 200 freestyle relay, where each competitor swam 50 yards of freestyle. Middleton’s relay consisted of Sulia Miller (10), Audrey Alexander (11), Clara Kiehl (10) and Piper García Hall (12). Middleton finished right where they were seeded in second place, going a 1:34.69.
Freshman Rian Jost was Middleton’s only swimmer in the 100 breastroke, going a time of 1:06.90 and placing 15th.
The next and final race was the 400 freestyle relay. Prior to this race, Verona was in first place, with Middleton 7.5 points behind. Leiferman told spectators and athletes that in order to win the meet, they not only needed to beat Verona’s A relay, but they needed to get ahead by 4 places. This was no challenge for the A relay of Sulia Miller, Audrey Alexander, Brynn Sundell and Tait Haag.
The energy in the stands was electric as the girls dove off the blocks. As the race progressed, the Cardinals passed other teams in the heat one by one, finishing in third place — two spots above where they were seeded. By doing so, they surpassed the Verona Wildcats by 10.5 points, just enough to earn them the title of 2023 State Champions.
“Our girls are super happy with how it went, and we are super proud of them…we couldn’t have done it without any of them,” Leiferman said. This was the team’s fourth state title, but the first since 2018. All of the hard work the team had put in for the preceding months had paid off with an incredible and unforgettable end to the season.
