After a historic 2023-24 high school swim season, the Stoughton High School boy’s swim team ended their season at the WIAA Division II state meet on Friday, Feb. 16, at Waukesha South High School.
Stoughton placed sixth out of 32 teams with 128.5 points. Their sixth-place finish was the highest team finish in school history.
The team competed in five events, including two relays. The 200-yard medley relay, consisting of Gavin Reiser (10), Matt Sorg (12), Julian Callendar (11), and Parker Housley (12), placed fifth, earning a podium finish and a new school record of 1 minute, 39.46 seconds. The 200-yard freestyle relay of Callendar, Housley, Josh Phillips (11), and Reiser, placed fourth with another podium finish.
Callendar, Reiser, and Sorg competed in individual events along with the relays. Callendar placed second in the 200-yard Individual Medley, breaking his school record with a time of 1 minute, 54.33 seconds. The old record was set by Callendar last year at state with a time of 1 minute, 57.15 seconds. Callendar also defended his state champion title in the 100-yard breaststroke, winning with a time of 56.91 seconds.
Reiser swam the 50-yard freestyle, tying for fifth at 21.68 seconds. Reiser also swam the 100-yard breaststroke, placing third at 58.29 seconds, a two-second drop from his seed time. Sorg swam the 100-yard breaststroke. He placed 13th with a time of 1 minute, 3.44 seconds.
“I wanted to qualify individually, which I got,” Sorg said. “I also wanted to [contribute] to the 200-yard medley relay school record, which we achieved.”
Senior Captain Housley also met some of his goals for the season.
“At Sectionals, I managed to drop a second in the 100 freestyle, which I’m really happy about,” Housley said. “The 200 medley relay and the 200 freestyle relay both managed to go to state, which I’m really excited about.”
The boys put in a lot of time and effort to achieve their goals.
“We would lift Mondays and Wednesdays, [then on] Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday we would swim. We had practice after school every day from 4 to 6,” Sorg said.
The team goal this year was to try and qualify as many people as possible for state.
Their practice schedule was changed to prepare for the post-season, which was filled with championship meets.
“After conference, we started tapering,” Housley said.
Tapering is different from their typical practices, as the team was getting ready to try and perform well at sectionals. If they achieved this, they would qualify for the state championship meet. During tapering, the number of yards the team swims is less, but the intensity of those yards increases. They put more work into fewer yards.
“Tapering is basically easier sets and easier workouts,” Housley said. “It’s high intensity but with a lot of time to rest between each [distance].”
During the season, the boys would have team dinners to prepare for the upcoming meet,
“We would go to someone’s house the day before a meet, have a good meal, and hang out for two to three hours,” Housley said.
It builds team morale and helps everyone get in the right mindset for the following meet. At the last team dinner of the season, before the Sectionals meet, many team members bleached their hair.
“It’s not something that everyone has to do,” Housley said. But you most likely saw several of our boy state swimmers with bright bleached hair, representing their accomplishments of their 2023-24 season.