Susan Harman

Your Prep Sports

CORALVILLE – Instructions for Senior Night festivities were announced at the City High -West High boys swimming meet Tuesday. Parents were to wait on the north side of the pool and the announcer said the “seniors would walk across the water” to them.

While it was a nice ceremony it did not take on biblical proportions. But the West/Liberty team dominated in the water if not on top of it, winning all but three events in defeating City High 119-51.

“I was really proud of them,” West coach Byron Butler said. “We’ve been working really hard. We have 55-ish guys on the team, and it’s a taper meet, the last meet, for a lot of guys. We have nine seniors, and I’m just proud of how they did all four years really.”

West High won all nine dual meets it swam this year, and the seniors never lost a dual meet in four years.

City High was a bit short-handed and not just because All-American Forrest Frazier wasn’t available. The Little Hawks had swimmers in only three junior varsity races.

“We’ve got some guys fighting some health issues and a couple guys where we’re making sure they’re prepared at the right time,” City coach Zane Hugo said.

West/Liberty captured all three relays and got victories from Tate Happel (200 free), Nikolas Sung (200IM), Michael Kimball (50 free), Izaak Hajek (100 fly) and James Pinter (100 free). Hajek and Pinter swam on three winning relays and Kimball on two.

“Those guys are pretty good at everything,” Butler said. “The clubs around here do a really nice job of making sure swimmers are versatile.”

Hajek led the way for a West 1-2-3 finish in the 100 fly.

“It was pretty difficult being as I think our practice last night was one of the hardest we’ve had,” Hajek said. “It was just a race of do everything correctly technique-wise, and then the time doesn’t matter. It’s all about effort. I felt like it was good for where I was at today.”

Pinter won the 100 free over teammate Sung and City’s Brennan Hill.

“Mondays are always our kick days, so we like killed our legs last night,” Pinter said.  “All of us were super sore. We all had a hard day in the weight room and then we had to wake up early this morning to get in a practice that was pretty tough.”

City High’s Isaac Weigel won two events, the 500 freestyle and the 100 breaststroke. Weigel’s time in the 100 breast, 1:02.78, was his season best.

“He’s been doing really well for us in dual meets,” Hugo said. “He’s only lost one race this season in a dual, in the 50 free, that was against a guy that’s leading the state this year.”

City High freshman Caleb Coons won the 100 backstroke in 58:34 in his season debut after a long injury layoff.

“I had an impingement in my left shoulder, so that was rough. I was out for about two months,” Coons said. “All things considered it was a pretty nice swim, for practicing for about a week and a half. It’s not 100 percent where I want it to be before state, but it’s getting back to where it should be.”

The Mississippi Valley Conference meet is Saturday at Linn-Mar. Hugo said Frazier will probably make his debut in the MVC meet.

“He’s coming off a really good junior nationals meet and we want to make sure he remains healthy through the state meet,” he said.

West High won its division last year when the meet was held at the University of Iowa pool.

The teams will still be training hard through the conference meet and won’t taper or rest until before the district meet. But it is part of the championship season, and Butler said the swimmers will depend on their own competitiveness and the adrenaline of a conference meet.

West/Liberty 119, City 51

200 Medley Relay – 1. West High (James Pinter, Val Trussov, Izaak Hajek, Michael Kimball) 1:40.84; 2. (TIE) City High (Caleb Coons, Isaac Weigel, Brennan Hill, Patrick Bui) and West (Andy Luo, Gavin Keeney, Luke Nichols, Kirk Brotherton) 1:46.83. (only scored three places)

200 Freestyle – 1. Tate Happel (ICW) 1:55.32; 2. Joe Kueter (ICH) 1:59.00; 3. Parth Patel (ICW) 2:01.22; 4. Aiden Petersen (ICW) 2:03.08; 5. Soren Ostby (ICH) 2:32.73.

200 Individual Medley – 1. Nikolas Sung (ICW) 2:10.28; 2. Luke Nichols (ICW) 2:11.47; 3. Boyd Skelley (ICW) 2:18.15; 4. Quinn Kopelman (ICH) 2:29.56; 5. A.J. Coons (ICH)2:47.30.

50 Freestyle – 1. Michael Kimball (ICW) 23.00; 2. Val Trussov (ICW) 23.15; 3. Edward Dowling (ICW) 23.67; 4. Brennan Hill (ICH) 24.34; 5. Patrick Bui (ICH) 24.68.

100 Butterfly – 1. Izaak Hajek (ICW) 52.68; 2. Kirk Brotherton (ICW) 59.27; 3. Quinn Kopelman (ICH) 1:04.11; 4. Tate Happel (ICW) 1:04.59; 5. Eli Naylor (ICH) 1:17.50

100 Freestyle – 1. James Pinter (ICW) 49.08; 2. Nikolas Sung (ICW) 52.38; 3. Brennan Hill (ICH) 53.37; 4. Quinn Wubbena (ICH) 53.81; 5. Patrick Bui (ICH) 55.93.

500 Freestyle – 1. Isaac Weigel (ICH) 4:53.80; 2. Andy Luo (ICW) 5:08.84; 3. Joe Kueter (ICH) 5:25.77; 4. Aiden Petersen (ICW) 5:34.23; 5. Luke Nichols (ICW) 5:37.29.

200 Freestyle Relay – 1. West High (Edward Dowling, Tate Happel, Quinn Wubbena, Kirk Brotherton) 1:35.17; 2. City High (Caleb Coons, Bigad Gaber, Patrick Bui, Joe Kueter) 1:40.66; 3. West High (Mitchell Locher, Mitch Clements, William Feng, Steven Yuan) 1:51.36. (only three scored)

100 Backstroke – 1. Caleb Coons (ICH) 58.34; 2. Parth Patel (ICW) 59.15; 3. Andy Luo (ICW) 59.66; 4. Boyd Skelley (ICW) 1:01.08; 5. Eli Naylor (ICH) 1:30.45.

100 Breaststroke – 1. Isaac Weigel (ICH) 1:02.78; 2. Gavin Keeney (ICW) 1:05.45; 3. Michael Kimball (ICW) 1:09.47; 4. Quinn Wubbena (ICW) 1:09.99; 5. Daniel Marichini (ICH) 1:24.12.

400 Freestyle Relay – 1. West High (James Pinter, Kirk Brotherton, Izaak Hajek Parth Patel) 3:25.02; 2. West High (Edward Dowling, Nikolas Sung, Tate Happel, Andy Luo) 3:32.42; 3. City High (Caleb Coons, Joe Kueter, Brennan Hill, Isaac Weigel) 3:35.30.

Junior Varsity

(Event winners)

200 Medley Relay – 1. West High (Gabe Bruns, Logan Nelson, Andrey Arshava, Connor Ahrens) 2:13.84.

200 Freestyle – 1. Lucas Kitchen (ICW) 2:23.99

200 Individual Medley – 1. William Chen (ICW) 2:21.00

50 Freestyle – 1. Andrey Arshava (ICW) 26.16

100 Butterfly – 1. John Li (ICW) 1:02.72

100 Freestyle – 1. Nicholas Morden (ICW) 1:02.04

500 Freestyle – 1. Joseph Bartoszczyk (ICW) 6:45.54

200 Freestyle Relay – 1. West High (Max Zhang, Benji Zhang, Carter Gage, Ethan Long) 1:56.61

100 Backstroke – 1. Kyle Dominy (ICW) 1:10.85

100 Breaststroke – 1. Steven Yuan (ICW) 1:13.81

400 Freestyle Relay – 1. West High (Jared Staskal, Nicholas Morden, Joshua Morden, Caden Greer) 4:30.87.

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