Swimmer hands out credit to others

LUTHERAN SWIMMER Maddie Tauscheck prepares for her third season on varsity. – Photo by Jessica Ott

Junior Maddie Tauscheck is the lone Crusader on the Kohler/Lutheran/Falls swim team this season, and she says some of her success comes from family and the co-op’s coach.

Tauscheck’s mother swam at Monroe, and her brother and twin sisters started the sport when they were 5 years old.

So she did the same at the YMCA.

“My siblings set a really good example for me,” she said. “I always remember going to his meets when I was little and thinking it was so cool, and I wanted to be just like him.”

Elliott, a 2013 North graduate who is 10 years older than Tauscheck, competed in the Division 1 state meet in Madison as a senior.

“I remember thinking how crazy it was that was my brother out there,” Tauscheck said. “He placed in one of his events and I was just really proud of him, and I always have looked up to him since I was little so it was really cool to see him swim. My mom is always such a big supporter of all of us, and I remember her in the stands being so happy for him.”

Her twin sisters and 2015 graduates of North also contributed, as Gabby (the other is Adrienne) even swam at state all four years on a relay team.

“Since they were girls, I feel like all of their friends would always come say hi to me and I remember thinking how I really would love to be on a team like that,” Tauscheck said. “Seeing how they interacted with their team and how they set such a big example. How they worked so hard as a team. I always wanted to have that friend group that swam together, which is what I have now.

“So I’m really happy about that.”

Tauscheck is on her third varsity season on the Kohler/Lutheran/Falls squad, which is the reigning Eastern Wisconsin Conference champion.

“That was a really big accomplishment,” she said. “That was one of the highlights of my high school year and I’m still grateful to have been a part of that team.”

Tauscheck helped the 200-yard medley relay team finish second at conference, and she was fifth in the 200 individual medley and seventh in the 100 breaststroke.

Tauscheck calls coach Elizabeth Buchholz a mentor and role model, even after that one day her freshman year when she made the youngster swim the 500 free for the first time.

“Nobody ever wants to do the 500,” Buchholz said. “She was nervous for it but I think a lot of time, after they swim it, they say it really wasn’t that bad. … It was not what they were expecting.”

Include Tauscheck in that group.

“I was terrified to swim it,” she said. “As soon as I was done, I knew I loved that event. I saw my time and felt I could improve it, so that was one thing I really worked on at practice. She’s helped me train more and more and I slowly got good at that event.”