Packers have high hopes for state swimming meet
Published 5:10 pm Monday, March 3, 2025
From left, Austin's Hunter Peters, Noah Holt, Brent Dahl, and Simon Pischke will represent the Packers at the Class A state swimming and diving meet this weekend at the Jean K. Freeman Aquatic Center. Rocky Hulne/sports@austindailyherald.com
Austin’s Brent Dahl swims in the 200-yard breaststroke in Bud Higgins this season. Rocky Hulne/sports@austindailyherald.com
Noah Holt swims in the 200-yard individual medley for the Packers Thursday. Rocky Hulne/sports@austindailyherald.com
Austin’s Simon Pischke swims the 100 yard butterfly during a dual against Rochester Mayo at Bud Higgins Pool. Eric Johnson/photodesk@austindailyherald.com
Austin’ s Hunter Peters swims the 200 yard freestyle in a dual against Red Wing in 2024 at Bud Higgins Pool. Eric Johnson/photodesk@austindailyherald.com
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The Austin boys swimming and diving team has put in the work, now the Packer state qualifiers will show what they’ve got at the Minnesota Class A State Swimming and Diving Meet at the Jean K. Freeman Aquatic Center at the University of Minnesota this week.
Austin senior Brent Dahl will be in contention for big finishes in two events, and sophomore Hunter Peters, senior Noah Holt and eighth grader Simon Pischke will be in the hunt as well.
“This has been a fun year, especially getting Simon up to speed,” Dahl said. “He’s only in his second year and he’s already one of our best swimmers.”
Being seeded first in the 100-yard backstroke and second in the 200-yard individual medley, Dahl will have his sights set on chasing Austin’s first state title since Logan Kelly won the 200-yard freestyle in 2021. Last season Dahl took third in the 200-yard individual medley at state and he was fifth in the 500-yard freestyle. He swam in the 100-backstroke at state as a freshman, but only swam the event a couple of times last year.
“I’ve been finding my arm speed, my kick speed and my underwater speed,” Dahl said. “Last year, I swam the backstroke in a different meet after the state meet and I swam a time that would’ve won the state meet, so we decided we should probably do that this year so I have a chance at winning state.”
In the 200-yard medley, Dahl will team up with Peters, Pischke and Holt as the No. 13 seeded team will try to reach top-16 to swim in Saturday’s finals.
“I’m excited to go there,” Holt said. “I really had to push myself in practice and try to recover outside of it. I was really consistent throughout the season and there weren’t really any huge time drops until the end of the season.”
The state tournament will be a first-time experience for Pischke, who is only in his second year on the team.
“I’ve learned a lot from the older guys, like how to get my strokes faster,” Pischke said. “I’m going to go all out; we’re going to try to get to day two.”
Peters, who competed at state last year, will also swim in the 100-yard breaststroke for the Packers this week.
“The confidence is about the same as last year,” Peters said. “Last year I wasn’t nearly as good as I am now. My 50-breast in the relay is about a second and a half faster.”
Peters said he’s learned a lot from former AHS swimmers Kenny Cabeen and Winston Walkup when he was younger.
“Those guys really helped me work my way through and Kenny messages me a lot,” Peters said.
Austin will swim in the preliminaries at noon Friday and the finals will be held at noon Saturday.
AUSTIN SEEDINGS
200-medley relay: The team of Brent Dahl, Hunter Peters, Simon Pischke and Noah Holt is seeded 13th with a time of 1:41.56. Saint Thomas Academy has the top seed at 1:34.98.
200-individual medley: Dahl is seeded second with a time of 1:54.79. Charlie Bobick of St. Cloud Apollo is seeded first with a time of 1:54.16.
100-backstroke: Dahl is seeded first with a time of 50.30 seconds. Northfield’s Josh Kraby is seeded second with a time of 51.33 seconds.
100-breastroke: Peters is seeded 19th with a time of 1:02.52. Luke Mechtel of St. Thomas Academy is seeded first with a time of 56.25 seconds.
