Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

Preparing a postseason plan is no easy task for a swimming team.

It took City High head coach Mandi Kowal and her coaching staff several days to put together an entry list for the Little Hawk’s district meet at Clinton last Saturday.

“We looked at our entire squad and to see where did we needed people,” Kowal said. “It was a two-day project of looking at all the pieces of the puzzle.”

The planning is made a little easier when you have a returning multi-event state medalist to plug into the lineup as Kowal did with senior Isaac Weigel.

When your standout swimming is as versatile and team-oriented the task gets even more manageable.

“Having someone like Isaac helps so much because he’s so versatile,” Kowal said. “We talked about for the sake of the team where we think you should go how do we get the most guys to state as possible and ss soon as we told him where we thought he should go, he said. “o.k.” that was it. It wasn’t some long conversation.”

Weigel didn’t just drop into a pair of new individual events at the district meet this season – he dominated them.

A year after finishing third at the state meet in the 500 freestyle and fourth in the 200 freestyle Weigel switched up his events and showed off his versatility by winning district titles in the 200 IM and 100 freestyle on his way to earning athlete of the meet honors.

“Every year it’s been the 200 and the 500,” Weigel said. “I take pride in my versatility so I was willing to go anywhere.  I’ve never really experimented with the IM and this year I swam it once, and I kind of naturally fell in there.”

Weigel won the 200 IM by more than a second on Saturday in a time of 1:54.12, the second fastest time among state qualifiers.

He was equally impressive in the 100 freestyle posting the fifth fastest qualifying time at 46.7.

More a distance racer for most of his career, Wiegel has showed his vast array of swimming skills this season by excelling in the shorter races.

“I have never trained for anything faster than the 200 so I’ve never focused on something that is so sprint focused and it was really interesting to get into,” Weigel said. “My coaches thought it would be a great experience and because of the breaks in this season with Covid I thought if I was going to try a different event it would be this year.”

Going from longer events earlier in his career to shorter races this season Weigel has left his mark up and down the City High record book.

“I was updating the top-10 times at City High and he’s on every top 10 thing and some of those races he hasn’t swam in a few years,” Kowal said. “He’s just really versatile and it’s fun to watch and fun to coach.”

Before Weigel worries about his spot in the record books or his swimming future, which he plans to figure out after the season, the senior has one more race as a Little Hawk.

It comes Saturday at the state meet at Linn-Mar High School where Weigel will look to build on his success last season that included four top-five finishes.

“I feel like I’m in a good spot to race well on Saturday and really I just want to go have fun,” Wiegel said. “These are guys that I know and guys that I’ve been racing with for years.  It’s my senior year and I just want to have fun. I want to leave a good impression on the people I am swimming with.”

In addition to his two individual events Weigel is a member of the City High 400 freestyle relay and 200 medley relay that are both coming off district titles last week.

The Little Hawks are defending state champion in the 200 medley relay and enter with the seventh fastest qualifying time at 1:39.67.

The 400 freestyle relay team owns the fourth fastest qualifying time at 3:11.08 and Weigel likes where both sit entering the state meet.

“The 200 IM relay on Saturday was nowhere near where we could go,” Wiegel said. I feel like it’s definitely going to be faster. It’s not that hard to swim fast because you are with three other people and they are all pushing each other. It’s not hard to get the energy up.”

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