Sports : Vikings earn their first dual meet win of the season

The Vikings earned their first dual meet win of the season with a gutty performance Friday night in Waterloo. Swimming with only 10 swimmers due to a number of injuries and illness, the young Viking squad managed to split a double Dual with Waterloo West and East. The Vikings fell by a wide margin to a tough West team but managed a strong 80-44 win over East.

The team was missing two very strong and experienced swimmers in Brandon Tharp and Josh Yerkes. Everybody had to swim the maximum four events and some guys literally got out of the pool and lined right back up for the next event. They were tired, but managed to gut out some pretty good swims. Just as nice as the win was the fact that a number of guys learned that they are capable of much more than they thought possible.

Beyond swimming tired, a number of swimmers really had to stretch themselves and swim events that they had never done before. Newcomers Matt Lash and Marshall Mullenix performed well in their first ever 200 freestyle and freshman Anthony Dickerson had a very impressive debut in the 500 freestyle, registering a time of 7:41.70 to earn 4th place. Despite the extra events and short rests, the ten swimmers recorded 19 new personal best times, three by senior Jake Stodola who dropped 1.5 seconds off both his 50 and 100 free. Marshall Mullenix also recorded three new personal best times.

The top placements for the night were by John Levis who won the 100 fly and finished second in the 200 Individual Medley. There were several swimmers who earned fourth place finishes including Jake Stodola in the 50 free, Anthony Dickerson in the 500 free and Tyler Naughton in the 100 back.

Friday night the Vikings will travel to Luther College where they will face host Decorah and Waterloo East in their last meet before the holidays.

Waterloo results:

200 Medley Relay A 2:14.15 DQ Tyler Naughton, Anthony Dickerson, John Eden, Jake Stodola

200 Free 2:42.78 5th Drake Tilson

3:00.65 6th Marshall Mullenix

3:05.82 7th Matt Lash

200 IM 2:19.49 2nd John Levis

50 Free 29.12 4th Jake Stodola

29.58 5th Ben Weekly

38.44 8th Garrett Wilson

100 Fly 1:01.32 1st John Levis

100 Free 1:06.63 5th Tyler Naughton

1:11.19 6th Jake Stodola

1:36.02 45th Wilson

500 Free 7:41.70 4th Anthony Dickerson

200 Free Relay A 1:51.38 3rd Ben Weekly, John Eden, Tyler Naughton, John Levis

B 2:08.33 5th Marshall Mullenix, Matt Lash, Drake Tilson, Anthony Dickerson

100 Back 1:19.40 4th Tyler Naughton

1:38.24 6th Marshall Mullenix

1:40.45 7th Matt Lash

100 Breast 1:34.44 5th Anthony Dickerson

1:58.36 6th Ben Weekly

400 Free Relay A 4:31.93 3rd Jake Stodola, John Eden, Drake Tilson, John Levis

B 5:27.76 4th Marshall Mullenix, Garrett Wilson, Matt Lash, Ben Weekly

West 133 V-S 31

West 139 East 19

V-S 80 East 44