In what’s becoming a tradition for top high school talents in Wisconsin, Edgewood junior Kelly Rodriguez will swim the 200 free and 200 IM back-to-back at the state meet.
Rodriguez won both of those events at Edgewood’s section meet last weekend, and holds times in both events that rank top 2 statewide. She’s the defending Division 2 state champ in the 200, where she’s second in the state right now behind Grafton senior Autumn Haebig, and Rodriguez has the top 200 IM time this season of any Division 2 girl. The decision to swim the 200 free and 200 IM back to back also takes her out of a battle against Haebig in the 500 free – Haebig has won three years straight and will go for a sweep of state titles in that race over her high school career. Rodriguez was 2nd in the 500 the past two years.
Wisconsin’s Preps Plus has a short video story on Haebig, which you can view via YouTube below:
As odd as that combination of events is, it’s not so out of the ordinary for the state of Wisconsin. Cedarburg’s Katie Drabot (one of the top swimmers nationally in her class and now a freshman at Stanford) won both titles as a sophomore in 2013, and future Wisconsin Badger standout Aja van Hout swept those races in 2010. The Wisconsin Interscholastic Swim Coaches Association (WISCA) notes that Abby Soderholm also competed in this double three years running back in the mid-2000s.
Rodriguez’s double leads Madison Edgewood, the team in line to win its second-straight Division 2 title, at least according to WISCA’s scoring of the meet psych sheets. In fact, WISCA says Edgewood could score more points than any team in Division 2 history if it holds its seeds or betters them.
Meanwhile in Division 1, Middleton is scored to win the meet by about 25 over Verona/Mt. Horeb. Middleton currently has the fastest times statewide in all three relays, which would be a huge boost. Both teams are really led by youth, with freshman Gabriela Pierobon Mays holding high seeds for Middleton and sophomore Grace Bennin the top-seeded 100 breaststroker for Verona. And don’t count out defending state champs Arrowhead, who are seeded within striking distance of the leaders.
We’ll have full recaps of both meets this weekend. The Division 2 meet takes place on Friday, Nov 11 at 6:30 PM and the Division 1 meet is Saturday at 3 PM. Both meets are timed finals.