Big 9 Weekend for the Winhawks

Saturday the Winona Winhawks travel to Albert Lea to compete in the Big 9 Conference Championships. Here are the standings as of this past week:


Big Nine Standings
Rochester Century          7-1-0
Mankato East/Loyola     7-1-0
Owatonna                       6-2-0
Mankato West                5-3-0
Rochester Mayo             3-6-0
Faribault                         3-6-0
Austin                             3-5-0
Winona Winhawks         3-2-0
Rochester John Marshall 1-7-0
Albert Lea                       0-8-0

You never really know how the teams will fare for Big 9. The Conference Champion title carries nothing more than bragging rights or chest beating perhaps (insert Tarzan yell here). Hey speaking of, maybe that is why swimming lacks some notoriety or rings a bell with younger kids these days. I grew up watching TV on Saturdays with Tarzan, Johnny Weissmuller swimming up and down rivers, wrestling alligators and pulling native warriors out of canoes. He even would high dive off of cliffs and tall trees into the rivers. Swimming and diving was cool. I even learned to “Tarzan swim” when I received my lifeguard training. That was what they called it then when you swam with your head up watching where the drowning victim was last seen. Then there was Sea Hunt with Lloyd Bridges, he was scuba diving, but swimming none the less. No, there are no idols on screen or set that swim well. They go over waterfalls, I have seen Michael Douglas, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, and even Harrison Ford makes the big ride. But they never show the star (or their stunt doubles) swimming, just shots of them climbing out of the river somewhere downstream. Yes, I believe we need more swimming actors and actresses. Some that are capable of doing a front crawl at speed and swimming lengths underwater, Anyway, I digress.

Big 9 doesn’t determine anything regarding Sections and State. It is a timed final event, so you get one shot at getting a top or high finish. The coaches have some swimmers taper for Big 9, others for Sections and fewer yet for State. So it is hard to predict how the teams will fare at Big 9, but it will be fun to watch.

Here is the roster for the Winona Winhawk boys team.

Name                  Grade              Event

Alex Vaslow         8                   Freestyle Distance
Avery Prondzinski 10               Backstroke
Cal Dretske            8                  IM, Breastroke
Daniel Karnick      10                Diver
Eric Mueller          11                Freestyle Sprint
Gio Borsari           11                Freestyle Mind-Distance
Joey Kleinow        10                Freestyle Mid-distance
Jonathan Birdsall  12                Freestyle Sprint, Breaststrole
Joshua Danzinger 12                Freestyle Distance                 Co-Captain
Justin Bublitz        11                Diver
Louie LaPorta       11                Freestyle Sprint, Backstroke
Matthew Bagshaw 12                IM, Fly
Mic Borsari             9                 Freestyle Sprint
Roger Brosnahan   8                  Freestyle Sprint Fly
Ryan Whalen         12                Freestyle Sprint, Backstroke     Co-Captain
Santino LaPorta     12                IM, Breastroke
Stan Petkov           11                 Diver