The Platteville/Lancaster girls’ swim team’s most successful season in more than a decade came to an end last Friday evening in Madison with four members of the team earning medals at the WIAA Divison 2 state championships.
     Lancaster junior Claire Friederick, and Platteville junior Sarah Loring, sophomore Maddie Kieler and freshman Melanie Schaefer continued their record-breaking season by breaking their own team record in the 200-yard freestyle relay, set just last week at the D2 Baraboo sectional.
     The Hillmen quartet raced to a 1:40:58 fifth place finish, in Friday’s state championship to eclipse their previous mark of 1:41.44.
     Their new record time was also good enough to earn Platteville/Lancaster its second all-state honor of the evening.
“That was an incredible time. I’m not sure they even realize just how fast that really is,” said Hillmen head coach Tom Caccia. “Hopefully, it will sink in over the next couple days.”
     The girls fifth place finish and All-State ranking is the first Platteville/Lancaster girls’ relay to be named All-State since Carissa Bartels, Sarah Felder, Bethany Scheppers, and Tracy Mast accomplished the feat back in 1994. This year’s 200-yard free relay team was seeded eighth going into the meet.
     Earlier in the night Friederick earned all-state honors and set another team record in the 50-yard freestyle.
She placed seventh in the event with a new varsity record time of :24.24 seconds, breaking her one-week old mark of :24.38.
     “The event was very fast this year and it was really quality swimming,” added coach Caccia.
     Friederick’s time gave her the program’s first individual all-state honor since assistant coach Liz (Von Feldt) Peters was named All-State in 1998.  Friederick was seeded fourth entering state, but finished seventh even though she improved in time, in a very fast field.
     Platteville/Lancaster’s night ended with the 400-yard freestyle relay team of Friederick,  Loring, Kieler and Schaefer establishing another varsity team record with a time of 3:46.32. The foursome held their seed and finished 15th in the race.
Friederick led off the relay with a new varsity record of :53.99 seconds in the 100-yard freestyle, again breaking her own varsity record of :54.60, set just one week ago.  
     As a team the Hillmen quarter scored 42 points in their three events and  finished 17th, up from 28th a year ago. Platteville/Lancaster scores 19 points last year.
     Milton repeated as Division two state champions, outdueling Shorewood 236-193.
     All four Platteville/Lancaster state qualifiers will return next season.
     “It was an exciting meet. Three events, four varsity records, and two All-State rankings. It’s pretty hard to top that. We’ll take a few weeks off and then start planning for next season.”

WIAA Division 2 State Championships
(from Friday, Nov. 11 @ UW-Natitorium)
Top 10 Team scores - 1.Milton 236, 2.Shorewood 193, 3.DeForest 159, 4.Plymouth 153, 5.New Berlin Eisenhower 147, 6.Fort Atkinson 144, 7.Ashwaubenon 133, 8.Elkhorn 108, 8.Grafton 108, 10.Whitefish Bay 100....17.Platteville/Lancaster 44.

Platteville/Lancaster’s state qualifiers
50 freestyle - 7.Claire Friederick (P/L) :24.24. 200 freestyle relay - 5.Pla/Lan (Friederick, Melanie Schaefer, Sarah Loring, Maddie Kieler) 1:40.58. 400 freestyle relay - 15.Pla/Lan (Friederick, Schaefer, Loring, Kieler) 3:46.32.