Sports

North breaks three school records

Sheboygan North swam in four events at the Alternative Fall State Championship at Waukesha South on April 6. The Golden Raiders left with three schools records and missed a fourth by less than 1 second.

“The girls swam lights out,” coach Chad Prisinger said. “I didn’t expect what happened. It was awesome all around. They were pleased as heck. The parents were excited. It was just a really cool atmosphere, considering the whole season and everything’s been so different. It was a great end to a shortened but really good season.”

Senior Kierra Perez, who will swim at St. Louis University next season, improved her 500-yard freestyle record by finishing in 5 minutes 15.03 seconds, good for ninth place.

Sophomore Julia Renzelmann was seeded 10th in the 200 free but took fifth thanks to her new record of 1:56.24. The previous one stood since 2008.

“I thought they both swam excellent at sectionals and I approached (state) with a little different mindset of let’s get some more rest, so the taper wasn’t quite the same,” Prisinger said. “And with Easter weekend built into it, they got a lot more rest, and I told the girls, we have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

“Because Kierra already had swam one of her fastest 500s ever at sectionals, she told me, ‘I’m just going to go for it, right out of the gate.’ And Julia did the same thing. She just went out and let everybody else try to catch her.”

The pair helped South to a 13th-place showing in the 31-team meet.

They were also on the eighth-place 200 free relay, along with sophomore Libby Cleveland and senior Gigi Gotzmer, that came in eighth in 1:40.09 to erase the old record from 2009.

“They were shocked,” Prisinger said. “They didn’t know initially they did it. … There were tears of joy. The individual swims are awesome, and the girls are excited about that, but there’s always something about a relay because it involves teammates and more things have to go right because there’s four girls swimming.”

Another record was almost set when Renzelmann, Cleveland, Gotzmer and sophomore Katie Spence placed 12th in the 200 medley relay in 1:52.19.

Because of the move to spring, North only had Fox River Classic Conference duals and took second with a 6-1 mark. The league did not hold a championship meet.

“(State) was just a cherry on top of a sundae,” Prisinger said.

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