Sports : Vikings wrap up swim season

Jake Stodola, Brandon Tharp, John Levis, Tyler Naughton receive 6th place in the 200 Medley Relay

John Levis (5th from left) on the awards podium for his 3rd place finish in the 100 butterfly

John Levis (far left) receives his 6th place medal in the 100 breast stroke.

Saturday in Marshalltown the Vikings wrapped up there swim season with a strong showing at the district meet.  Facing perennial powerhouse Cedar Falls as well as strong squads from host Marshalltown, Linn-Mar, Waterloo East and West and Ottumwa, the young Vikings grabbed a sixth place finish ahead of Waterloo East and just behind Ottumwa.  Scores, places and times were not publicly releasable until Tuesday as two of the district meets were postponed until Monday night due to snow.

Throughout the season, the Vikings squad, comprised of only five returning swimmers and nine newcomers has steadily improved.  Saturday marked the strongest performance of the year with a record number of personal best times.  Thirty one times a Viking swimmer entered the pool to compete.  Twenty five of those swims were new personal best times which is a strong testimony to the work the team put in this year. 

Senior captains Tyler Naughton and John Levis each registered four personal best times while fellow senior Josh Yerkes recorded three in his three events.  Some sizeable time drops included John Eden taking 13.5 seconds off in the 500 freestyle and 3.4 seconds off in the 200 freestyle.  Tyler Naughton had nice improvements in both the 100 back and 100 free, where he dropped more than for seconds for each.  For Naughton, this was a more than a twelve second improvement in each of these events over where he finished last season.  First-year swimmer Matt Lash also turned in a strong performance in the 100 back, shaving nearly 4 seconds off his previous best.  Senior Andy Newcomb, who missed most of the season due to injury, managed to come back with amazingly strong performances in the 50 and 100 fresstyle where he dropped 5 and 10 seconds respectively from his end-of-season times last year.

John Levis turned in another strong performance, earning medals for placing third in the 100 butterfly and sixth in the 100 breast.  John registered his best time ever in the fly, but missed the cut for the state meet by less than a second.  With only one classification in swimming, only the top 24 swimmers in the state for each event earn a trip to state.  Nevertheless, a top-30 finish while competing against hundreds of kids from larger cities such as Cedar Rapids, Des Moines, Iowa City and Sioux City is still a great accomplishment.

The Vikes also earned medals in a pair of relays.  The 200 Medley Relay team of Tyler Naughton, Brandon Tharp, John Levis and Jake Stodola and the 400 Free Relay comprised of Josh Yerkes, Tyler Naughton, John Eden and Brandon Tharp each finished sixth.

The district meet marked the final swim for six swimmers from the team, to include four-year members Josh Yerkes and John Levis and three-year performer Tyler Naughton.  But with a core of 8 returning swimmers the team should be in good shape to continue building and improving for the future.

                                                1:14.31       Exh. Andy Newcomb

500 Free                        6:35.68      13th  John Eden

                                      7:55.17      16th  Drake Tilson