The River Falls High School boys swim and dive team won its first Big Rivers Conference dual meet of the season with a 109-55 victory over the Chippewa Falls Cardinals on Thursday, Dec. 8, in River Falls.

With the win, River Falls joined Hudson and Rice Lake as the only three undefeated teams remaining in the Big Rivers Conference. For River Falls head coach Caitlin Brudzinski, Thursday night’s success was expected, even though the Wildcats were missing one of the best swimmers on the roster in senior Taylor Matter, who was absent because of an illness.

Despite the absence of one of the team’s strongest swimmers, River Falls managed to win 10 of 11 total events with the lone loss coming in the 100-yard Butterfly in which the Wildcats finished in second place by less than a second. Coach Brudzinski spoke about the dominant performance on Thursday night in the BRC opener.

“After seeing Chippewa at their Invite on Dec. 3, we expected that this would be a win for us,” Brudzinski said. “Chippewa does have some strong swimmers, like Rowan (Rineck) and Jackson (Simonson), but they aren’t as deep as they’ve been in the past. We had a pretty easy win last year against them and after they graduated a couple of seniors who were strong contributors the result was expected. I was very proud of how the athletes all pushed through and competed Thursday night.”

For the swimming portion of the meet, River Falls jumped out of the gate with a victory in the 200-yard Medley Relay, a group that included juniors Alton Lesneski and Kai Hagen, senior Cooper Cernohous and sophomore Ty Wise. The makeshift relay, in the absence of Matter, finished eight seconds clear of Chi-Hi’s second-place finish.

Later in the evening, the 400-yard Freestyle Relay group of Lesneski, senior captain Nathaniel Fosler, junior Ethan Engler and sophomore Daniel Carns put a bookend to the meet with a victory in the final event of the night.

While River Falls had success in the relays throughout the night, the Wildcats also took care of business in the individual events. Lesneski also secured first-place results in the 200-yard Freestyle and the 500-yard Freestyle. Carns finished first in the 50-yard Freestyle and the 100-yard Freestyle while Fosler took home a win in the 200-yard IM.

Even though River Falls racked up the first-place finishes against Chippewa Falls on Thursday night, Brudzinski was just as impressed with some other strong finishes among swimmers either trying new events or just beginning their competitive careers.

“Without Taylor (Matter), we had a couple of athletes swimming events they don’t normally swim,” Brudzinski said. “Nathaniel Fosler swam the 100 Butterfly for the first time and was third. Another performance that stood out was second-year swimmer senior Preston Conrad. He joined us last year and in the 100 Freestyle swam to a third-place finish and almost went sub-minute. He also swam to a second-place finish in the 100 backstroke, barely behind sophomore Ty Wise.”

Although River Falls still has droves of strong swimmers on the roster, Brudzinski and the Wildcats are still looking to replace some of the production lost by last year’s seniors, particularly in the distance events.

“Ethan Engler gave the distance events a try, doing the 200 and 500 Freestyle, and he did well, swimming to third in both of them,” Brudzinski said. “Which is helpful, because we graduated our distance swimmers last year and we’ve been working to figure out who’s going to take those events on a regular basis.”

While the swimmers will always lead the way for the Wildcats this season, the divers are starting to show signs of progress, as they took home the top three places in the diving competitions on Thursday night.

River Falls sophomore Gus Schmitt-Mischke took home first, freshman Tristan Patz finished second and senior Max Goll earned a third-place result. According to Brudzinksi, the new divers in the program are still learning the basics, and Thursday’s meet was the first time they’ve competed in this season, except for Schmitt-Mischke, the one experienced returner on the roster.

“They competed for the first time this season and all three were able to complete a six-dive list,” Brudzinski said. “They all are able to complete at least one dive in each of the five categories, which is awesome at this point in the year. Gus is leading the way, but that’s to be expected as he did have some experience from last year.” River Falls continues its Big Rivers Conference slate of competition with a dual meet on the road against Eau Claire Memorial on Thursday, Dec. 15. Defeating Memorial and/ or Hudson in a dual is one of River Falls’ four main goals this year, so Thursday will be a big test for the Wildcats.

River Falls’ Thursday night dual meet at Eau Claire Memorial is scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m.