The River Falls High School boys’ swim and dive team put together its best all-encompassing performance of the season, which netted the Wildcats a first-place finish ahead of 11 other teams at the annual Maroon and Gold Invite at the University of Minnesota on Saturday, Jan. 7.

River Falls head coach Caitlin Brudzinski expected her Wildcats to finish somewhere in the top three. However, her roster posted 23 season-best times at the Maroon and Gold Invite which ultimately led to victory in their respective division.

“I figured we would place better than last year, somewhere in the top three,” Brudzinski said. “I wasn’t sure we’d win it. We absolutely had athletes who placed higher than they were seeded, by virtue of having season-best swims and that is the reason we were able to come away with the win.”

River Falls tallied 345 points as a team in its gold medal performance on Saturday afternoon. The Wildcats edged out second- place finisher Dassel Cokato-Litchfield, which had 312 points and third-placed Blaine with 309.5.

River Falls got out to a hot start with a second-place finish in the 200-yard Medley Relay event, which featured senior Taylor Matter, juniors Alton Lesneski and Kai Hagen, and sophomore Daniel Cams. The relay shattered all expectations and posted a time of 1:45.15, which was their fastest of the 2022-23 season and was less than one second away from last year’s sectional time that qualified for state.

Later in the meet, the 200-yard Freestyle group of Matter, Hagen, Cams and sophomore Ty Wise earned another second-place finish with a time of 1:36.83, another season- best. Their effort trailed only that of first-placed Blaine, which finished two seconds ahead of River Falls. Coach Brudzinski spoke about the relay success at the University of Minnesota.

“They absolutely did,” Brudzinski said when asked about her athletes having their best stuff on Saturday. “Both the medley relay and the 200 free relay went their fastest times this year and the medley relay was less than a second off their state qualifying time of last year.”

Most of River Falls’ strongest swimmers compete in the relays while also having success in individual events. The aforementioned Matter earned a victory in the 200yard Individual Medley and a second-place finish in the 100-yard Butterfly event.

Cams won both the 50-yard Freestyle and the 100-yard Freestyle with times of 22.11 and 49.61 respectively. Lesneski also took home a third-place finish in the 200-yard Freestyle event. Brudzinski spoke about some of the outstanding individual results.

“Taylor had season-best times in both of his events and was 0.4 seconds off his school record in the 100-yard Fly,” Brudzinski said. “Daniel also had season-best times in his events. Overall, we had 23 season-best

See RF SWIM, Page B-3 performances between swimmers and divers on Saturday.”

The Wildcats’ success at the Maroon and Gold Invite is a bounce-back performance after coming up just short against Eau Claire Memorial in a Big Rivers Conference meet on Thursday, Jan. 5. Memorial and Hudson have served as the two perennial powerhouse programs in the BRC for more than a decade and River Falls is constantly looking for a way to join that conversation.

After last season’s 57-point loss against Memorial, the Wildcats had hoped that this year they could push the Old Abes to the brink or even pull off the upset victory. Instead, River Falls’ upset bid came up just short in a 106-79 defeat. Coach Brudzinski spoke about closing the scoring gap, but not quite earning the victory.

“I know going into the season, especially after seeing EC vs Hudson results, the guys wanted to win this one,” Brudzinski said. “After actually competing against EC at an invite in December, I think they had that reality check that even though they’re smaller than previous years, they’re still a bit stronger than we are. That being said, to decrease the gap as much as we did is a huge improvement and shows how the team has grown.”

Part of the reason River Falls is starting to close the gap against a top-tier program such as Memorial is because all the swimmers on the roster are contributing to the final score. River Falls’ best athletes are either winning their races or coming close and depth athletes are slowly moving up the leaderboard.

The Wildcats’ steady improvement across the board has been noticeable, especially in recorded times at practices throughout the year. Even with weather cancellations and rescheduled events, Brudzinski’s roster continues to improve and drop time.

“With the weather issues, it’s been an interesting year,” Brudzinski said. “Our top athletes bounce around a little with their times, but overall we’ve been seeing time drops throughout the meets we’ve been able to have. Our newer and middle-tier athletes have also been seeing those time drops. As a team, we’ve already dropped 158 seconds in individual events through the first month of competitions.”

River Falls was back in action on Tuesday, Jan. 6, when the Wildcats went on the road to compete against the Hudson Raiders. That meet was slated to begin at 6:30 p.m.