Sports : Viking continue to improve, split with Waterloo East, Decorah

Last week saw another solid performance by the Vikings as they split a dual with Decorah and Waterloo East. Down one of our key performers, we were able to hold off Waterloo East 93-76 while falling to a very talented Decorah squad 106-64. We had three more event wins. Once again, Brandon Tharp won the 100 Breast and John Levis captured first in the 500 Free. Levis also finished first in the 200 Free by more than four seconds but was disqualified for raising his head on the block prior to the starter’s signal. The 200 Free Relay team of Tharp, Matt Pettengill, Josh Yerkes and Levis finished first in a very tight heat; a mere 2.5 seconds separating the top three teams. There were another four events where we finished second; two individual events and the other two relays.

Perhaps more exciting than the win, was the fact that the team continued its strong improvement, with yet another 18 new personal best times last night. We had some huge time drops led by Ben Stainbrook who cut more than four seconds off his 100 Fly time to finish a close second in his event. Drake Tilson dropped more than 22 seconds off of his best 500 free time. Andy Newcomb and Nick Gardner showed great improvements in the 100 free taking off seven and four seconds respectively.

Our next meet is tonight at Grinnell at 6PM.

200 Medley Relay A 2nd 1:59.15 Sean Dulin, Brandon Tharp, Josh Yerkes, Wes Lyons

B 5th 2:18.38 Nick Gardner, Alvin Long, Ben Stainbrook, Tyler Naughton

200 Free 5th Drake Tilson 2:39.05

200 Individual Medley 2nd Brandon Tharp 2:22.26

3rd Matt Pettengill 2:33.15

8th Alvin Long 3:34.12

50 Free 5th Wes Lyons 25.14

8th Tyler Naughton 31.36

9th Andy Newcomb 35.97

100 Butterfly 2nd Ben Stainbrook 1:09.23

4th Josh Yerkes 1:20.18

100 Free 3rd Matt Pettengill 57.26

5th Sean Dulin 1:01.81

8th Nick Gardner 1:09.20

500 Free 1st John Levis 5:39.26

6th Drake Tilson 7:14.95

200 Free Relay A 1st 1:43.63 Tharp, Pettengill, Yerkes, Levis

4th 1:53.95 Stainbrook, Lyons, Long, Dulin

100 Back 6th Sean Dulin 1:17.64

7th Tyler Naughton 1:34.47

100 Breast 1st Brandon Tharp 1:08.98

6th Alvin Long 1:27.80

7th Wes Lyons 1:29.03

400 Free Relay A 2nd 4:00.42 Levis, Stainbrook, Yerkes, Pettengill

B 4th 5:03.52 Gardner, Newcomb, Tilson, Naughton