Sports : Viking Swimmers sprinted to a home victory over Waterloo

Tuesday night yielded an impressively dominant victory the Viking Swimmers as they sprinted to a 58-35 home victory over Waterloo East that was even more one-sided than the score suggests. The Vikes turned in first-place finishes in every one of the eleven events, although an errant swim cap officially cost them the victory in the final event in what would have been a 68-27 win.

The evening started with a first place finish of the 160 Medley Relay team of Rico Carneiro, Brandon Tharp, Josh Yerkes and Matt Pettengill. John Levis followed up with a win in the 200 Free. Rico Carneiro and Matt Pettengill finished a strong first and second in the 160 Individual Medley before Brandon Tharp staged an impressive late surge to win a tight race in the 60 Free. The Vikings went to the first break with a 24-9 lead.

After the intermission, the Vikes continued their domination with Ben Stainbrook and Josh Yerkes finishing one and two in the 100 Fly. This was followed by John Levis’ victory in the 100 Free and Matt Pettengill earning first in the 500 Free. Another victory in the 160 Free Relay by Carneiro, Levis, Yerkes and Sean Dulin brought the teams to the second intermission with the Vikings firmly ahead 48-18.

The final stage of the meet kicked of with on of the closest races of the night as Rico Carneiro battled back to win the 100 Backstroke by less than a second. Brandon Tharp then cruised to a half pool length victory in the 100 Breast, setting the stage for the final event. The 320 Free Relay “A” Team of Levis, Pettengill, Yerkes and Tharp finished a commanding 38 seconds ahead of the nearest Waterloo team and the “B” team of Stainbrook, Nick Gardner, Drake Tilson and Wes Lyons finished a solid second. But as the Vikings cruised to a finish that seemingly secured the sweep, a swim cap flew into the pool during a joyous victory celebration. Unfortunately, as Waterloo East still had a swimmer in the pool, this caused both the first and second place relay team to be disqualified. It’s a tough way to miss out on accomplishing a sweep of all events, but it’s a good lesson for the guys to learn. You need to stay in control at all times and, as Yogi Berra says, “it ain’t over ‘til its over”.

The Vikings swimmers also earned the third place finish points in the other two relays and in each one of the other individual events where they didn’t finish first or second. No individual Viking swimmer finished lower than third. In the contested junior varsity events, the Vikings also won every event. We only had JV entrants in the Medley Relay and two individual events. Our relay team finished first and the individual swimmers took first and second in both of their races.

The team came into the meet looking for a convincing victory, but nobody was really thinking about sweeping every event. Waterloo has some pretty good swimmers and we have never come close to beating them in every event before. In our first meet of the year they actually beat us, so for our guys to have turned in this type of performance is just fantastic.

The Vikings will next be in action Thursday night in Waterloo before closing out the regular season against a very tough Decorah team at home on Tuesday, January 25th starting at 4:45PM.

160 Medley Relay A 1st 1:27.33

Rico Carneiro, Brandon Tharp, Josh Yerkes, Matt Pettengill

B 3rd 1:36.10

Sean Dulin, Alvin Long, Ben Stainbrook, Wes Lyons

JV 1st 1:57.63

Andy Newcomb, Nick Gardner, Drake Tilson, Tyler Naughton

200 Free 1st John Levis 2:02.44

3rd Nick Gardner 2:46.50

160 Individual Medley 1st Rico Carneiro 1:51.84

2nd Matt Pettengill 1:56.26

60 Free 1st Brandon Tharp 30.34

3rd Wes Lyons 34.57

JV-1st Drake Tilson 36.69

JV-2nd Alvin Long 38.37

100 Butterfly 1st Ben Stainbrook 1:09.19

2nd Josh Yerkes 1:12.22

100 Free 1st John Levis 53.00

3rd Sean Dulin 1:02.72

JV-1st Tyler Naughton 1:11.43

JV-2nd Andy Newcomb 1:20.16

500 Free 1st Matt Pettengill 6:13.87

3rd Drake Tilson 7:15.16

160 Free Relay A 1st 1:18.53

Carneiro, Levis, Yerkes, Dulin

B 3rd 1:28.75

Stainbrook, Naughton, Gardner, Lyons

100 Back 1st Rico Carneiro 1:03.78

3rd Sean Dulin 1:12.10

JV-1st Tyler Naughton 1:25.54

JV-2nd Andy Newcomb 1:31.57

100 Breast 1st Brandon Tharp 1:07.68

6th Alvin Long 1:23.97

320 Free Relay A DQ-1st 3:01.31

Levis, Pettengill, Yerkes, Tharp

B DQ-2nd 3:34.53

Stainbrook, Gardner, Tilson, Lyons