Waukee top team at state swimming

By Ryan Timmerman | Photos by Matthew Putney 

IOWA CITY — It didn’t take long for Ankeny’s Lance Swanepoel to rack up a pair of gold medals at the Iowa boys’ high school state swim meet on Saturday. 

The senior won back-to-back events, taking the 50-yard freestyle in 20.33 seconds and then winning the next race, the 100 butterfly, with a time of 46.89 seconds.

Both times give Swanepoel automatic All-American status.

Waukee was the top team of the 2023 state meet, which ran Friday and Saturday at the University of Iowa Aquatic Center in Iowa City. The Warriors finished with a team score of 304. West Des Moines Valley was second at 214, and Ames (176) was third.

Swanepoel, who was a part of two winning relays for Ankeny as a sophomore and won the 100 butterfly as a junior, also swam on Ankeny’s runner-up 400 free relay, which timed out at 3:06.34. For that, the senior swam the opening leg before turning it over to senior teammate Calvin Howard, sophomore Brock Peterson and junior Owen Schwebach.

Waukee’s all-senior team won the 400 free relay with a time of 3:10.63, with A.J. Abram on the first leg, James Coffey on the second, Cooper Rogers third, and Sam Davey anchoring. It was the third year in a row that race went to Waukee, with Abramm Davey and Rogers on all three winners.

Abram was also the last leg of Waukee’s first-place 200-free relay after he won the 100 free and 200 free last winter. Asher Havenhill led off before Rogers took over and Davey was third as the group finished at the 1:23.17 mark to earn an All-American time. Ankeny was runner-up more than a second behind (1:24.93).

Ames started the day by winning the 200-medley relay, clocking in at 1:33.24, a time worthy of All-American consideration. Juniors swam the first three legs for the Little Cyclones. Evan Feilmeyer led off and handed it over to Joshua Chen, then Ian McCorkle and sophomore Tristan Day finished it off to edge the team from Linn-Mar, which swam a 1:33.85.

Valley’s Jacob Pins took the 200 free (1;37.52). Iowa City High junior Holden Carter (48.66) was second.

The Little Hawks did get a winner in the 200 individual medley, where junior Joe Polyak turned in a winning time of 1:48.94 for automatic All-American status to beat Waukee’s Asher Havenhill (1:50.02) and Owen Chiles (1:50.51) of Pleasant Valley.

Pins also won the longest race, the 500 free, for the second year in a row. He turned in an All-American worthy time of 4:25.34 for that, beating runner-up Will Gorman of Pleasant Valley by more than eight full seconds as Gorman checked in at 4:33.58.

A City High swimmer also finished atop the podium in the 100 free, where senior John Weigel’s time of 45.12 seconds beat out Waukee’s Abram (45.34) and Linn-Mar’s Hudson Huberg (46.19).

Havenhill won his second race in the next event, the 100 backstroke for the second consecutive time. The senior’s time of 49.20 seconds was a winner, while PV’s Chiles was next at 49.44.

Ames’ Chen was the first of two All-American times in the 100 breaststroke. Chen won with a 55.42 mark. City High’s Polyak (55.44) was just behind.