MONROE — When facing one of the best teams in state, the focus isn’t necessarily on winning the meet, but competing stronger during individual races. Such was the case Sept. 10 as Monroe-New Glarus lost to McFarland 100-70 in a Badger South dual.

“McFarland is really an awesome team and they are super deep,” said MNG coach Kendra Kalvin. “I’m just happy that they challenged us to show up. We still won four of the varsity races, and in my book, I’m happy with that. We were just happy to see where we are at against them at this point in the season.”

The Cheesemakers won four of the 11 races. Francesca Schiro won the 50-yard freestyle (29.33) and the 100-free (1:02.64). Mekenzie Hammer was first in the 200-yard Individual Medley (2:32.04), and Morgan Erstad was first in the 400-free (4:51.74).

“Francesca Schiro did really awesome — she raced her heart out in both of her races and in her relays. We really needed to see that,” Kalvin said.

MNG had six second place finishes: Karley Michels in the 100-breaststroke (1:21.64), Hammer in the 100 backstroke (1:09.16), Alyssa Roelli in the 100-butterfly (1:12.55) the 400-freestyle relay race (4:23.18), the 200-freestyle relay (2:07.73), and the 200-yard medley relay (2:10.89).

“I think we’ve just been figuring ourselves out as a team. With two new coaches, we needed to figure out how it works, but we’ve done really well,” Kalvin said.

Moving forward, Kalvin said her squad is going to get down to the nitty gritty in the coming weeks, hoping to finish the regular season strong.

“Moving into the rest of the season we’re going to be focusing a lot on detail — swimming the race, but swimming it the best they possibly can with all the details perfectly in place is our next step,” Kalvin said.