Sports : Stormin’ Vikes Split with State Power Linn-Mar and Waterloo

The Vinton Shellsburg - CPU "Stormin" Vikings opened their season last night with a strong performance showing some great potential for yet another solid year. Top 5 team in the state Linn-Mar showed up with all 48 swimmers and dominated the meet as expected. But the VS/CPU squad had some strong swims and managed a 93-67 victory over the Waterloo consolidated team.

With only nine swimmers, the challenge this season will be scoring depth which is particularly problematic in dual meets where each team can enter three events and five places score. With so few swimmers, a lot of points are surrendered to the opposition by default. But even with two guys under the weather health wise, and a number of top swimmers needed to swim in events other than their best events, the team responded. On the night, every swimmer on the team scored varsity points.

Top performances came from the Medley Relay (Wes Farrell, Brayden Beck, Hunter Kempton, James DeSmet) and the A 200 Free Relay (DeSment, Broden Farrell, Kempton, Beck) which finished 2nd in each event. No small feat given the strength and depth of Linn-Mar, who produced numerous times in this season-opening meet that will easily be state-qualifying. Those two groups have some new faces but sit right around where we were at this time last year. Top individual performances were the Farrell brothers who finished 4th in the IM (Broden) and the 500 (Wes), Brayden Beck who was 3rd in the 100 Breast, and Hunter Kempton with a 4th in the 100 Back.

The team is back in action Saturday at Newton for the Cardinal Invite where they will face host Newton, Grinnell, Indianola, and Oskaloosa.