Twice as Nice: NCMP dunks competition at conference meets

GRINNELL — Harper Barton will have a tough choice to make in a few weeks when the Newton-Colfax-Mingo-Pella girls’ swim team participates in the regional meet.

But for now, the pressure is off for a few of her best events as she earned the automatic standard qualifying time in the 50-yard freestyle at the North Central Swim Conference meet on Saturday.

She also hit the standard qualifying time in the 100 freestyle a few days earlier in the Little Hawkeye Conference meet.

Barton’s four wins at Grinnell College led the Aquagirls to a second straight NCSC team title. This time, NCMP won seven events, finished 1-2 in the 100 breaststroke and scored nearly 400 points at the top of the standings.

“It’s a great feeling. My teammates and coaches have helped me and supported me,” Barton said. “I couldn’t have done it without them. I feel like all the training I have done is paying off. My hard work is paying off.”

The Aquagirls have put in some tough practices recently, and even though a few girls are struggling to lower their times right now, NCMP head coach Nick Shelton is happy where the team is overall.

No. 13 NCMP won its second straight NCSC title with 387 points despite scoring zero points in diving.

No. 24 Grinnell/BGM/Baxter finished 1-2 in diving and moved into the second spot with 231 points. It finished third in each of the previous two seasons.

The rest of the seven-team field featured No. 34 Oskaloosa (209), No. 27 Decorah (205), No. 31 Boone (193), No. 41 Williamsburg (99) and No. 57 Vinton-Shellsburg (19).

Oskaloosa edged last year’s runner-up Decorah for third after finishing seventh in each the past two seasons.

“The girls show up and put in the work,” Shelton said. “They’ve earned all of this, and I’m impressed with how they’ve competed this year.

“Everyone swam great. I felt like we had all good swims today. Sometimes we have meets where we have good swims and not so good swims. It was good to put together a full meet.”

The Aquagirls won all three relays for the second straight season, Barton was part of four wins and NCMP scored at least one top-five finish in all 11 swimming events.

Barton posted the standard qualifying time in the 50 freestyle inside the Russell K. Osgood Pool. She won the race with a season-best time of 24.71 seconds. That puts her tied for sixth in the state and she’s the 12th swimmer to hit the automatic qualifying time in the event.

“The pressure is off in those now for state,” Barton said. “The plan is to qualify in the breaststroke, too, and then see which ones I want to swim at state.”

NCMP’s best individual event on Saturday was the 100 breaststroke. Barton won the race in 1 minute, 8.38 seconds and Addison Van Maanen was the runner-up in 1:11.19.

Barton is now a three-time conference champion in the event and her best time this fall ranks 13th in the state.

Barton and Van Maanen also were part of two relay wins. NCMP won all three of them and placed 1-3 in the 400 freestyle relay.

The Aquagirls opened with a win in the 200 medley relay. The team of Tori White, Van Maanen, Paige Benson and Alex Riney won the race in 1:57.17.

“I think they relays are pretty solid. We have a lot of confidence in those,” Van Maanen said. “I think they are mostly set, but we might make a few changes.”

It was NCMP’s third straight title in the event and White has been part of all three. Riney was a member of the last two title teams.

The 200 freestyle relay team was made up of the same four swimmers who won the event last year. The only thing that changed was the order as Peyton Ray, Benson, Riney and Barton won the race in 1:43.75. NCMP’s best time of the season in this event ranks 12th in the state.

“This is the last year with my seniors. We have to make it,” said Barton, who also claimed four wins at this meet last season.

White, Hailey Dickerson, Izzy Lane and Temple Barton were part of the ‘B’ relay team that placed fourth. They posted a time of 1:47.82.

Ray, White and Harper Barton all were on last year’s winning 400 freestyle relay team. They were joined by Van Maanen this fall and the quartet won the race in 3:48.96. That’s just shy of their best time, which ranks 12th in the state.

The ‘B’ relay in that event featured Dickerson, Avery Meyer, Emalee Weuve and Riney and they finished third in 4:06.54.

“My thought process in those relays were to get the points,” Shelton said. “Some of them hadn’t swam in those relays this year, but we tried to score as many points as we could. We don’t have diving so I wanted to make up those points where we could. At districts there’s only one relay team each so this is the final time we can get those points.”

The first individual win for the night came from Van Maanen in the 200 individual medley. She won the race by nearly 8 seconds with a time of 2:22.88.

Van Maanen was even with her closest competitor during the first two legs but created a bunch of separation on the breaststroke leg.

“The backstroke is definitely my weakest one, and the one I’m putting in the most work to improve,” Van Maanen said. “If I’m behind in the backstroke I feel like I can make up the ground in the breaststroke.

“I have started to drop time in (the backstroke), too. I have worked on it a lot in practice. It’s getting better. (The breaststroke) is starting to finally feel more efficient and like it used to.”

Van Maanen, who did not swim in this meet last year due to a prolonged illness, was fourth in the 200 IM as a sophomore.

The other individual win came from Ray in the 100 freestyle. She hit the wall first in 56.32. It was her second straight conference title in the event.

Ray also led a 2-3 finish in the 200 freestyle with a time of 2:04.58. Temple Barton was third in 2:14.06, which was .22 seconds faster than the fourth-place swimmer.

Grinnell’s Kyliee Zylstra rallied past Ray in the final few laps to win in 2:03.39.

Lane was the runner-up in the 100 butterfly with a personal-best time of 1:06.49. Benson finished fourth in 1:09.12 and Grinnell’s Josie Smith was the winner in a school-record time of 1:01.33.

White (1:05.31) and Dickerson (1:09.38) finished second and fifth, respectively, in the 100 backstroke, Meyer swam a career-best time of 6:01.72 to place fourth in the 500 freestyle and Riney took fifth in the 50 freestyle with a time of 26.13 seconds.

“We had lots of time drops,” Shelton said. “And for some of these girls, it will be their last races. It feels good to do that at the end of the season. They’ve put in the work and got to experience the payback. That’s what we preach in practice all the time. It’s going to pay off and it did today.”

Notes: Baxter junior Camryn Russell is now a two-time conference champion in 1-meter diving. She won the event on Saturday with a career-best 11-dive score of 520.25. That’s about 12 points off the pool record. She won the event with a score of 457.4 last season. … NCMP won the NCSC meet last year with 314 points. The Aquagirls were second the season before with 321 points. … Smith of Grinnell won the athlete of the meet for the second straight season. Shelton and NCMP won the meet by more than 150 points despite not having divers, but he was not one of the two “Coaches of the meet.” … The Aquagirls did not have the services of Anna DeVries due to a band function and Lane missed the early portion of the meet due to the ACT test.

NCMP continues dominance at LHC meet

INDIANOLA — Backed by 10 wins and seven 1-2 finishes, the Aquagirls dominated the field at the Little Hawkeye Conference meet on Tuesday.

NCMP won its fourth straight conference championship and its eight title in nine seasons thanks to four wins from Harper Barton and three each from White, Ray, Riney and Van Maanen. The latter three also were second in their fourth event at the Indianola YMCA.

The Aquagirls won the meet championship with 706 points. No. 38 Indianola took second with 477 points and No. 34 Oskaloosa placed third with 416.

“We dominated that meet. We saw some good stuff and saw good time drops,” Shelton said. “We set a pretty tough lineup because I thought Grinnell was going to be there because they were there last year.”

NCMP finished 1-2 in all three relays and posted a 1-2-3 finish in the the 100 freestyle, 100 breaststroke and 100 butterfly.

White, Van Maanen, Lane and Riney won the 200 medley relay in 1:59.32. The runner-up team of Dickerson, DeVries, Benson and Temple Barton posted a time of 2:04.75.

The winning 200 freestyle relay team featured Ray, Benson, Riney and Harper Barton and they turned in a time of 1:44.51. Dickerson, DeVries, Lane and Temple Barton took second in 1:51.27.

NCMP’s winning 400 freestyle relay team of Ray, White, Van Maanen and Harper Barton finished in 3:51.43. Dickerson, Meyer, Temple Barton and Riney finished second in 4:07.91.

Harper Barton led a 1-2-3 finish in the 100 freestyle. She came in just under the standard qualifying time and won the race in 54.5 seconds. She’s the 19th swimmer to hit the standard time in the event and claimed the LHC title for the second straight season.

Ray (56.23) and DeVries (1:02.77) were 2-3 in the 100 freestyle, while Lane (1:07.36), Julia Nedder (1:10.41) and Benson (1:10.62) were 1-2-3 in the 100 butterfly. Barton and Ray were 1-2 in the 100 freestyle for the second straight season.

Harper Barton, who posted four wins in this meet in each of the last three seasons, won the 100 breaststroke in 1:08.32 and Van Maanen (1:12.83) and DeVries (1:18.59) were second and third, respectively. It was Barton’s third straight LHC 100 breaststroke title.

Ray won her second straight 200 freestyle title after posting a time of 2:05.32. Temple Barton finished second in 2:12.47.

White also is a two-time winner in the 100 backstroke after taking the event in 1:04.59.

Van Maanen and Riney both missed the LHC meet last year but won an individual event this season.

Van Maanen claimed her second LHC title in the 200 individual medley after finishing in 2:24.61. She won the event as a sophomore.

Alexa Van Maanen finished third in 2:38.33 and the runner-up had a time of 2:37.16.

Riney won the 50 freestyle in 26.7 seconds and Benson was the third in 27.65. That was .07 seconds back of second.

Meyer grabbed NCMP’s final runner-up finish in the 500 freestyle. She took second in 6:02.34, which was a career-best time before going faster than that on Saturday.

“Avery Meyer got a big time drop in the 500 in that one,” Shelton said. “Hopefully with a taper we can get her under 6 minutes at regionals. That would be a great milestone as her career winds down.”

The NCMP junior varsity also won the meet with 227 points. Indianola (83) and Oskaloosa (12) also scored points.

Madison Scott won the JV 200 freestyle, Peyton Phillips won the JV 100 freestyle and Nedder and Weuve finished 1-2 in the JV 50 freestyle. Kimberlee Miller and Alexa Van Maanen also were 1-2 in the 100 breaststroke and the Aquagirls won the JV 400 freestyle relay with Brilea Moffitt, Lillian Pinko, Scott and Veronica Mark.