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Travis Phillips Advances to State for the Hatchet Boys Swimming Team Published on 02/12/2018 under Sports

The Hatchet Boys Swimming Team finished in fourth place at the WIAA Sectional Meet on Saturday at Hudson.

Final Scores: 1. Lakeland – 290.5 points, 7 individual events and 2 relay team qualify for WIAA State 2. River Falls – 272 points, 3 individual events and 1 relay team qualify for WIAA State 3. Rhinelander – 262 points, 5 individual events and 2 relay teams qualify for WIAA State 4. Tomahawk – 239 points, 2 individual events qualify for WIAA State 5. Pulaski – 199 points, 3 individual events qualify for WIAA State 6. Rice Lake – 183 points, 2 individual events qualify for WIAA State 7. Wausau East – 166 points 8. Antigo – 157.5 points, 2 individual events qualify for WIAA State 9. Shawano – 150 points 10. Menomonie – 114 points 11. Medford – 51 points

On the Hatchet side of the equation, an amazing day was the overall experience for the Tomahawk Boys team.

Travis Phillips had a double first place finish, and earning him lanes to compete at the WIAA State Meet. Phillips won the 50 yard freestyle with a school record time of :22.72 and the 100 butterfly with a school record time of :54.10. Travis was seeded 2nd behind Lakeland's Grant Gibson in the 50 free, and was able to pull out a meet win in this very unforgiving race by just .08. In Travis' 100 butterfly race he was a solid 1.54 seconds ahead of his closest competition, David King of Rhinelander who will also be swimming the event at State.

Additionally for the Hatchets, the 4th place finish with 239 points is by far the highest finish they've ever recorded in both place and point total. In 2016 they had recorded their highest ever finish with a 7th and 155.5 points, and last year in 2017 they were 8th as a team despite scoring a record to date 169 points.

With the exception of only 2 swims throughout the day, all of the Hatchets individual events placed in the top 16 to score points, with 9 of those making it onto the blocks for recognition in the top 8, and all 3 of their relays also placed in the top 8.

Of the 18 individual event swims that the Hatchets competed in, 13 of them were personal best swim times for the boys for a total of 34.08 seconds of cumulative individual and relay team time-drop. Most notable were: -Sophomore, Keaton Jed who took 2.13 seconds off of his 200 yard Individual Medley for 3rd place overall and 16 points, plus another 1.39 seconds off of his 100 yard backstroke for 8th place and 11 team points

Junior, Evan Ploeckelman who had a 1.47 second personal record in the 500 yard freestyle for 10th place and 7 points, followed shortly after with a 1.87 personal best swim in the 100 breaststroke at 1:11.63 for 6th place and 13 points

Senior Kole Svacina had an amazing day to round out his swim career in style, taking 1.51 seconds off of his 200 freestyle time down to a 1:56.72 for 7th place and 12 points, and in his signature 500 freestyle event he went 10.53 seconds faster than his time from last week's new school record time at GNC conference of 5:24.05 down to a 5:13.52 (3rd place and 16 points), a time for which we had hopes of being fast enough to make it into the state meet, though unfortunately this was not to be as Lakeland's Liam Hogan who swam a 5:08.70 for 2nd place ends up to be the 16th seed at the upcoming state meet.

A total of FIVE new school records were achieved at the meet on Saturday:
The 200 yard Medley Relay team of Senior Kole Svacina at backstroke, Junior Evan Ploeckelman at breaststroke, Sophomore Travis Phillips at butterfly and Sophomore Keaton Jed at freestyle came away with a new record in the first event of the day! They broke the old record set at the same meet in 2017 at 1:51.38 by Svacina, Parker Knipfer, Nathan Goehe and Peyton Hamm. This team's new time is 1:50.49 and they took 6th overall for 26 team points.
As was previously stated, Sophomore Travis Phillips re-broke both of his individual records in the 50 freestyle and the 100 butterfly to take Sectional 1st places and earn his berth at Friday's WIAA State Swim Meet in Madison, and Senior Kole Svacina re-broke his record in the 500 yard freestyle again on Saturday to a new best time of 5:13.52.

The 400 Freestyle Relay team of Svacina, Senior Tom Rieter, Sophomore Keaton Jed and Phillips went another school record time of 3:29.46 taking an additional 3.32 seconds off of their school record time from GNC Conference Meet last week of 3:32.78 to take 4th overall for 30 points. Again, like in Kole's 500 free we had visions of a state berth in the event, however the 16th seed and last team to make it into the meet was DeForest with a time of 3:28.66 and so both Pulaski in 3:29.08 who was 3rd at our meet and our Hatchet home team will not be able to swim the event again at the big meet.

Tomahawk's Travis Phillips will swim at state, with the Division Two action beginning on Friday, February 16 at 6:30 pm.

In Other News

Hatchet Regional Baseball Game Suspended Due to Weather

Published on 05/25/2018 under Sports The Hatchet Regional Baseball game was suspended due to lightning on Thursday at Lakeland. The Hatchets and T-Birds will resume their game on Friday. The game is through 4 1/3 innings with Lakeland leading Tomahawk 8-2. The game resumes at 3:30 pm.

Published on 05/25/2018 under Sports The Tomahawk Hatchet Track and Field Team sent several events to the WIAA Sectional Meet at Colby High School on Thursday. Cody Jablonski - 11th place in the 100 meter dash - 12.05 Wyatt Wenninger - 10th place in the 200 meter dash - 24.09 Zack Flowers - 7th in the triple jump - 41'3 1/4", 7th in the long jump - 20' 1 1/4", 9th in the high jump - 6' Girls 4x800 meter relay - Maddie McCormick, Meagan Berg, Arianna Schriener and Kaylie Svacina - 9th - 11:07 Boys 4x100 meter relay - Wyatt Wenninger, Cody Jablonski, Caleb Venzke and Kade Wenninger - 12th - 46.28

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Published on 05/25/2018 under News While the Memorial Day weekend is seen as the start of the summer season, its real meaning is to reflect on those who gave their lives while serving. While a majority of the Memorial Day ceremonies will be held Monday, a select few are scheduled for tomorrow. A growing Saturday ceremony is at the Union Grove Cemetery in Harshaw. That event began almost 20 years ago with a just a handful of people. Now the event includes more than 500 attendees. One of the newer features is a motorcycle procession named for Einar Ingman. That will leave from the Tomahawk Legion Post at shortly after 10am. The ceremony itself gets underway at 11:30 tomorrow at the Union Grove Cemetery on Lakewood Drive in Harshaw. Check out our community calendar for a full run down of local Memorial Day events.

Published on 05/25/2018 under News A local principal has been selected to lead a state association for school administrators. The Merrill School District announced that Trisha Detert was recently appointed president of the Association of Wisconsin School Administrators for next school year. Detert is a currently principal at Washington Elementary. She has previously served as principal at Tomahawk Middle School, as well. The Association was created back in 1978, "designed to improve educational opportunities by ensuring the professional growth and competency of school administrators while coordinating their interests and needs." Merrill Superintendent John Sample says the selection exemplifies Detert's leadership qualities and professional trust she has established with her colleagues statewide. The opportunity will see Detert pulling a double duty as she'll continue to serve as principal in Merrill. She called it an honor to be selected as president of the organization.

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+ Read More Tomahawk Police Report

Published on 05/25/2018 under News A resident on Leather Avenue reported a break-in. It did not appear as though anything was missing, however the door jamb was damaged. Officers are following up. Officers are investigating after a driver went through a temporary road closure on Theiler Drive Thursday. Crews reported the man drove through a yard and knocked over signs. Officers responded to a hit and run incident. The driver was located a short time later and will be cited for the hit and run, as well as, OWI and operating without insurance. Officers were called to an altercation in which one individual allegedly spit on the other and threw a phone. As a result, the 59 year old was brought in for domestic disorderly conduct. And once again Tomahawk Police are participating in the Click It or Ticket safety belt enforcement campaign. There was an increase in the number of contacts for safety belts violations with either warnings or citations. That campaign runs through June 3.

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