Sports : Viking Swimmers show improving time

The Vikings returned to action Tuesday night showing significant improvement. Facing familiar foes Waterloo East and Decorah, the Vikes split a pair of dual meets. Decorah beat the Vinton-Shellsburg 140-67 while the Vikings handled the Trojans 111-66. The 45 point margin of victory more than doubled the spread versus East from the meet on December 17th.

Most impressive were the number of time drops, particularly among the first-year swimmers. Overall there were 19 new bests registered led by newcomers John Eden and Garrett Wilson with two each and three each from Ben Weekly, Matt Lash and Drake Tilson. Guys have worked hard and sometimes it takes just little bit of rest over the holidays to see those results. Garrett dropped 4.07 seconds in his 100 free (this after dropping two seconds at the last meet) and Matt took off 2.5 seconds in the 50 back. Marshall Mullenix also had a big drop of 4.7 seconds in his 100 back.

Top finished for the night were:

· John Levis – 1st in both the 200 Free and 500 Free

· John Eden – 3rd in the 200 Free and 4th in the 100 Fly

· Brandon Tharp – 3rd in the 50 Free

· Jake Stodola – 4th in the 50 Free

· Drake Tilson – 4th in the 500 Free

· CJ Fowler – 4th in the 200 IM

The best relay finishes for the Vikings were strong second-place showings in both the 200 Free Relay (Brandon Tharp, Josh Yerkes, Tyler Naughton and John Levis) and 400 Free Relay (John Levis, John Eden, Tyler Naughton and Josh Yerkes).

On Saturday the Vikings travel back to Waterloo for the Wahawk relays. This eight-team, all relay race meet features some of the best teams in the state in Cedar Falls and Iowa City West. On Tuesday, January 10th the team will make their home debut against Grinnell at the Iowa Braille School gym.

200 Medley Relay A 2:05.71 3rd Tyler Naughton, Brandon Tharp, Josh Yerkes, Jake Stodola

B 2:25.30 6th Matt Lash, Anthony Dickerson, David Richter, Ben Weekly

200 Free 2:04.01 1st John Levis

2:25.05 3rd John Eden

2:40.77 6th Drake Tilson

200 IM 3:48.05 4th CJ Fowler

50 Free JV 31.09 1st Marshall Mullenix

36.64 2nd Garrett Wilson

50 Free 26.97 3rd Brandon Tharp

28.86 4th Jake Stodola

29.15 6th David Richter

100 Fly 1:24.24 4th John Eden

1:24.77 4th Josh Yerkes

100 Free 1:07.92 6th Ben Weekly

1:18.85 8th Matt Lash

1:29.04 9th Garrett Wilson

500 Free 5:45.56 1st John Levis

7:42.97 4th Drake Tilson

8:00.83 6th Anthony Dickerson

200 Free Relay A 1:49.99 2nd Brandon Tharp, Josh Yerkes, Tyler Naughton, John Levis

B 1:59.07 3rd David Richter, Jake Stodola, Ben Weekly, John Eden

C 2:06.91 6th Matt Lash, Garrett Wilson, CJ Fowler, Marshall Mullenix

100 Back 1:21.28 5th Tyler Naughton

1:29.38 6th Marshall Mullenix

1:36.33 7th Matt Lash

100 Breast 1:39.03 5th Anthony Dickerson

400 Free Relay A 4:19.83 2nd John Levis, John Eden, Tyler Naughton, Josh Yerkes

B 4:55.74 5th David Richter, Drake Tilson, Marshall Mullenix, Ben Weekly