Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

IOWA CITY – A three-week break early in the season officially kept the West High swimming team apart.

In reality the three-week hiatus from competition and official practices that came as a result of Iowa City schools starting the school year online only, brought the Trojans closer together.

“I think it definitely brought us together because we had to get through it all together and lean on each other for support,” West High senior Aurora Roghair said. “It has been nice having their backs and knowing that they have mine too.”

West High opened the season with huge expectations.

The Trojans returned two of the top swimmers in the state in Roghair and junior Scarlet Martin from a team that finished fourth at the state meet a year ago and welcomed a strong freshman class.

A little more than a week following its first dual meet West High had its season shut down when it was ruled schools going online only couldn’t participate in extra curricular events.

That meant no practices with coaches.

In sports like swimming where finding adequate facilities is a challenge this can get tricky.

“It was super hard because a lot of the pools were closed,” Martin said. “While we were all online and shut down and couldn’t practice with (West High coach Byron Butler) we got a group of the girls together and we would go and practice. It ended up working out well and we got it done.”

West High didn’t just get it done, the Trojans got better.

Despite the obstacles it has faced this season West High enters the state meet on Friday at the Marshalltown YMCA one of the favorites to battle for the state title.

The three-week break in competition, the training without coaches and finding places to swim – it all just made West High that much more of a tight-knit group.

“I think a bunch of leaders had to step up and we had the girls to do that,” Martin said. “A bunch of leaders on this team stepped up and showed what they were about.”

Finals for the state meet are set to begin Saturday at noon and West High figures to be right with defending champion West Des Moines Dowling, last year’s runner-up Ames and Waukee in the title mix.

Dowling won the team title last season with 360 points while Ames was second with 328.

West High was fourth at 184.5 but returns that team nearly entirely intact.

“This year is so weird,” Butler said. “If you look at scoring things out and get real technical things Dowling Catholic doubled our point total last year. They were at 360 and we were at 185, even though they lost a lot of really good it was still a little bit out of reach, Ames had 300 some points too. We are going to try to put the qualifiers in the best position to swim fast.”

Led by Roghair and Martin, who were both two-event winners last season, West High has the firepower to contend.

Roghair is seeking to defend her state titles in both the 200 and 500 freestyle and has the second fastest time in both events this season behind Waukee sophomore Jessi Wigham.

Martin enters with the top qualifying times in both the 100 backstroke and 100 fly.

“Those teams area really good and we are a really deep too, and I know we are really good too,” Roghair said. “It’s going to be tight competition.

The key for West High could be depth.

The Trojans have three qualifiers in four individual events and two qualifiers in two others.

West High has 13 individual entries with top-12 qualifying times.

Jade Roghair is third in the 200 freestyle and fourth in the 500 freestyle and freshman Kolby Reese is eighth in the 500 and 12^th in the 200.

“We have some new freshman that are really helping us this year we have seen a lot of good things with them,” Martin said. “I think we are in an even better spot than last year.

West High also has top four qualifying times in all three relays.

The 400 freestyle team of Jade and Aurora Roghair, Martin and Olivia Taeger has the top qualifying time after West High finished runner-up at state last season in the event.

The foursome of Aurora and Jade Roghair, Martin and Ella Hochster features the second fastest time in the 200 freestyle relay and Hochstetler, Taeger, Makala Hajek and Carlee Wilkins have the fourth fastest time in the 200 medley relay.

“Our medley getting under 1:50 is definitely a huge boost,” Butler said. “We are going to give it our best to try and see what happens.”

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