Dolphins continue their swimming success

WAYNE — The Hartington Dolphins have embraced the past and come away with another conference title in the swimming pool over this past weekend — a title their current coach and longtime participant in swimming in Hartington, Anna Reifenrath, was thrilled with.

Hartington swam past Fremont 495-460 for the overall team title; the Wayne Dolphins were third with 381 points.

“I was thrilled to win conference this year,” Reifenrath said. “Fremont has always been a great team, but they were in the other class last year so we didn’t go against them in the team race; they moved up this year.”

The classes in the conference swim meet are based on the number of participants, not the size of the town.

Reifenrath has been coaching since 2019, when as an 18-year-old she competed and coached for her first year.

“I had always competed on the team,” she said. “They asked me to step in and coach, and I said yes; it has been very rewarding.”

Hartington won 12 events on the way to the championship and logged 20 runner-up finishes in the meet.

“We competed very well all the way from top to bottom,” Reifenrath said. “The kids really worked hard to get to this point and all of the hard work paid off.”

The Dolphins earned wins from Eli Cattau in the 9-10 100 individual medley and 25 fly; Levi Steffen in the boys 8-and-under 25 fly; Hadley Dendinger in the girls 9-10 25 fly; Joseph Barnell in the boys 15-18 50 fly; Jake Christensen in the boys 8-and-under 25 breast stroke; Greyson Haselhorst in the boys 9-10 25 breast stroke; Landry Heimes in the girls 11-12 50 breast stroke and Keira Carl in the girls 9-10 25 freestyle.

They also had wins in the Ceda r

8-and-under 100 mixed medley relay (Emmitt Koch, Paizleigh Eickhoff, Garrett Bartling, Anders Peitz); 9-10 100 medley relay (Jagger Haselhorst, Greyson Haselhorst, Eli Cattau, Ella Hoepner) and 8-and-under mixed 100 relay (Paizleigh Eickhoff, Anders Peitz, Emmitt Koch, Levi Steffen).

“Our kids have improved so much over the summer,” Reifenrath said. “It is just amazing.”

Reifenrath is a teacher at St. Joseph School in Lincoln, where she teaches seventh- and eighth-grade history and coaches volleyball, basketball and track.

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