T-R PHOTO BY NOAH ROHLFING – Marshalltown senior swimmers Marcus Barker, right, and Aaron Seberger look on after finishing in a tie for second place in the 100-yard freestyle event at Saturday’s district meet at Linn-Mar High School in Marion. Both swimmers advanced to state with their time of 48.29 seconds.
MARION — Mike Loupee was cautiously optimistic the Marshalltown boys’ swim team would have a good number of state meet qualifiers following the district meet at Linn-Mar High School Saturday afternoon.
Saturday night, the good news came through — 12 swimmers qualified in nine of the 11 events, meaning the Bobcats will be well-represented Feb. 12 at the University of Iowa. Marshalltown finished third in the team standings at districts with 323.5 points.
Loupee said the taper Marshalltown had leading up to districts was one of the best he’s seen in a while.
“The kids swam out of their brains,” Loupee said. “We had a great day. We had 36 swims, 32 of those were season and lifetime bests.
We had probably one of the better tapers we’ve had in a long, long time, and we have good tapers every year. They swam with a lot of heart, with good focus and they did everything that we asked them to do.”
T-R PHOTO BY NOAH ROHLFING
Marshalltown began the meet with a five-second time drop in the 200-yard medley relay — the group of Dane Petty, Sam Greazel, Charlie Gilbertson and Carter Hunt finished fourth in the district with a time of 1 minute, 41.74 seconds. They qualified as the 19th seed.
In the 200 freestyle, Stephen Blom finished in fifth place and swam a season-best 1:48.20 to earn the 26th seed.
Petty and Lincoln Barker finished with sixth-and-seventh place times of 1:48.73 and 1:52.76, respectively. Petty qualified as the 29th seed.
Marcus Barker qualified in the first of four events with a 2:00.94 in the 200 individual medley, coming in as the 23rd seed. The very next event, Aaron Seberger put in a season-best time of 21.86 in the 50 freestyle to qualify as the eighth seed and a second-place finisher in the district.
Gilbertson then qualified as the 32nd and final seed in the 100 butterfly with a career-best time of 55.38 and a fourth-place district finish.
T-R PHOTO BY NOAH ROHLFING
Seberger and Marcus Barker finished in a dead tie for second place in the 100 freestyle with 48.29, good enough for the 13th and 14th seeds at state.
Marshalltown’s distance swimmers in Blom and Petty found themselves finishing right next to each other again in the 500 freestyle, but on this occasion Petty had the better finish. With a 4:51.52, he beat Blom by three-hundredths of a second to take the 15th seed at state, while Blom’s 4:51.55 was good for 16th.
The Bobcats then nearly won the 200 freestyle relay with a time of 1:28.74 from Seberger, Hunt, Lincoln and Marcus Barker — Linn-Mar beat the Bobcats by .5 seconds. With the result, it will be the 13th seed at state.
Loupee said a lot of the Bobcats were very impressive in the pool, but one name stuck out.
“It’s almost impossible to pick out one swimmer and one performance, because they were all great,” Loupee said. “Probably the biggest surprise of the day would be Sam Greazel’s breaststroke. He’s never broken 30 seconds and he went 28.88 in his split in the medley relay.
T-R PHOTO BY NOAH ROHLFING
“For a freshman to come into this kind of pressure and swim that well, that was tremendous.”
Greazel finished fourth in districts at the 100 breaststroke, cutting his prior career-best by five seconds with a 1:04.91. He missed the cut for state by just over one second.
The final event of the day, the 400 free relay, saw Marshalltown finish with a 3:19 — good enough for the 14th seed.
Marshalltown will have a busy Friday and Saturday in Iowa City, with preliminary events set to begin at 5:30 p.m. on Friday for all individual qualifiers. State begins at 12:30 p.m. on Saturday — and Loupee said he’s hopeful the Bobcats can eke out some more time before then.
“I’ve got a real good idea of what we can do ahead of prelims and finals in the coming week,” Loupee said. “I am guardedly optimistic we’ve still got some more time to drop.”
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- T-R PHOTO BY NOAH ROHLFING – Marshalltown senior swimmers Marcus Barker, right, and Aaron Seberger look on after finishing in a tie for second place in the 100-yard freestyle event at Saturday’s district meet at Linn-Mar High School in Marion. Both swimmers advanced to state with their time of 48.29 seconds.
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- T-R PHOTO BY NOAH ROHLFING
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- T-R PHOTO BY NOAH ROHLFING
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- T-R PHOTO BY NOAH ROHLFING
