Sports : Big night propels Viking swimmers to dual meet split; Senior Night meet today

There must be something in the water in Grinnell. For the second time in the past month the Viking swimmers had a hugely successful performance at the Grinnell College pool. Facing host Grinnell and Oskaloosa in a double dual Tuesday night, the Vikings split the meets falling to Grinnell 109 - 54 while defeating Oskaloosa 76-65.

But the big story of the night was the tremendous improvement the team registered across the entire lineup as the Vikes clocked 26 new personal best times to include some significant time drops by a number of swimmers and in a pair of relays. Headlining the evening’s improvements were senior Jordan Evans, who turned in four new best times, to include dropping nearly two seconds off of his previous best 50 yard freestyle time, and freshman Dylan Geater who also set four new personal best times. Freshman Tyler Hekel established three new personal bests, one for each event in which he competed.

The meet started fast with the Vikings 200 Medley Relay of Matt Upmeyer, Ryan Levis, Anthony Dickerson and Jordan Evans dropping 7 seconds from their time last week in finishing a close third. Later in one of the biggest races of the night, the 200 Free Relay of Caleb Kruckenberg, Evans, Upmeyer and Dickerson finished a close second while bettering the team’s previous best time of the year by more than 3 seconds.

Top individual results included second place finishes for Matt Upmeyer in the 50 Free, Anthony Dickerson in 100 Free and Ryan Levis in the 100 Breast and the 100 Butterfly. Senior Kyle Schemmel took third in the 500 Free.

Dickerson’s swim in the 100 Free was at a pivotal point in the meet and in the most tightly-seeded race of the evening. Five swimmers hit the water seeded between 58.0 and 59.3 seconds. Anthony delivered with a tremendous effort in lowering his personal best by two seconds to 56.82 while earning much needed points for his team. He also turned in a blazing, monster cookie inspired 24.40 split anchoring the 200 Free Relay, improving his personal best time by nearly a full second.

The Vikings are right back in action late Thursday afternoon at the Iowa Braille School pool when they take on visiting Waterloo East. The meet, which will be senior night, begins at 4:30. Please come out and support your Vikings.

See the Grinnell dual meet results HERE.