Sports : Viking swimmers improve at Newton meet

The Viking swim team participated in the annual Newton Invite last weekend in Newton, as the young team continued to make great improvements. The meet included strong squads from Indianola, Grinnell, Decorah and host Newtonas the Vikings finished fifth overall at the meet.

The Vikings managed to earn several medals with top performances being first place finishes by senior John Levis in the 200 meter freestyle and the 400 meter freestyle and a second place finish by junior Brandon Tharp in the 100 meter breaststroke. The 200 meter freestyle relay team of Tharp, Levis, junior Tyler Naughton and impressive freshman John Eden managed a strong 4th place finish, falling to third-place Grinnell by a mere seven tenths of a second.

But once again the story of the night is the continued improvement from a team that has only five returning swimmers. Two-thirds of the squad is new or relatively new to swimming but they are learning quickly and improving rapidly. The newton pool is a challenge as it is a meter pool and thus about 10% longer than a normal 25-yard pool. It is also quite a bit longer than the 20-yard pool that the team practices in at the BrailleSchool. Nevertheless, there were nearly twenty new personal best times recorded Saturday. Of note were performances by senior Ben Weekly who dropped nearly 10 seconds from his 100 free time and freshman Anthony Dickerson who showed some nice improvement with an eight second drop in the 100 breaststroke.

The Vikes next take the pool Saturday in Grinnell where they will face host Grinnell as well as Indianola, Linn-Mar and Waterloo West.

Times and results from Saturday are below. All events were meters.

Medley Relay A : 8th Place , 2:35.03; Tyler Naughton, Anthony Dickerson, Drake Tilson, Marshall Mullenix

Medley Relay B:10th Place, 3:02.88; Matt Lash, Ben Weekly, John Eden, Garrett Wilson

200 Free: 1st Place, 2:16.47; John Levis

200 Indiv Medley: 8th Place, 3:24.15; John Eden

50 Free: 9th Place, 34.77; Weekly

10th Place, 43.09; Wilson

100 Fly: 4th Place, 1:15.61; Brandon Tharp

100 Free JV: 5th Place, 1:46.86; Wilson

100 Free: 9th Place, 1:18.15; Dickerson

10th Place, 1:23.19; Lash

400 Free: 1st Place, 5:01.96; Levis

10th Place , 6:53.06; Tilson

200 Free Relay A: 4th Place, 1:59.09: Tharp, Naughton, Eden, Levis

200 Free Relay B:10th Place, 2:25.55; Mullenix, Weekly, Dickerson, Tilson

100 Back: 8th Place, 1:32.35; Naughton

10th Place, 1:45.01; Mullenix

100 Breast: 2nd Place, 1:19.80; Tharp

10th Place, 1:49.52; Dickerson

400 Free Relay A: DQ, 4:38.76; Levis, Eden, Naughton, Tharp

400 Free Relay B: 9th Place, 6:09.15; Lash, Weekly, Mullenix, Tilson