Girls swimming: Little Cyclones set record tone at Ottumwa

Aug. 31—OTTUMWA — Mac Payne knows just how much hard work went into setting the Ottumwa High School girls swimming record in the 200 medley relay last season.

The time of 1:53.66 achieved by Payne, Ava Johnson, Leah Chelgren and Libby Moses not only earned the Ottumwa teammates a spot on the record board at Mike McWilliams Pool, but a trip to last year's girls high school state swimming meet. On Tuesday, in just one swim, the Ames Little Cyclones showed just what type of talent the Bulldogs were up against by joining Payne and her Bulldog teammates on the record board for the fastest 200 medley swam in Ottumwa's home pool.

Melissa Ning, Reece Winer, Saylor Horras and Andra Robertson set the tone for a big night for the Little Cyclones in the Iowa Alliance Conference debut for both teams breaking Ankeny's two-year-old pool record in the opening varsity race of the meet. In fact, the Ames teammates posted a time that was a quarter-of-a-second faster than the still-standing school record time posted by Ottumwa's four swimmers at last year's state qualifying meet, finishing the race in 1:53.41 in a time that would certainly be good enough to place in the top 20 at this year's state meet.

Ames is hoping both that relay, and several more times, will be even lower by the end of the season. The Little Cyclones won all but one race on Tuesday against the Bulldogs, winning the Alliance dual 135-27 to open a season that Ames hopes will culminate with the program's 10th state championship.

"I think's really special to break a record right off the bat this season," Winer said after coming within a second of breaking the pool record in the 100-yard breaststroke, winning the night's penultimate race in 1:07.93. "So many people put in so much effort and work really hard to get those. We super-excited for the season. I think we felt like we were capable of putting a time like that up right away. Our motto for this meet was to go out there and have some fun.

"We've got big goals for this season. We're very excited for the season. We've got a team goal of qualifying everyone for the state meet. Winning a state championship is definitely something we feel like is within reach."

Payne spent most of the night trying to chase down many state championship hopefuls throughout the night, ultimately finishing fourth in the 100-yard breaststroke in 1:18.16 and fifth in the 50-yard freestyle in 27.04 seconds. The exhausted two-time state qualifier talked about the tone that was set seeing a state-caliber time posted by Ames in the very first race of the early-season meet.

"It makes sense that they came out here and posted a pool record right off the bat. There's almost a little bit of jealously going on just because we worked so hard last year to get to the point we could post 1:53.66," Payne said. "Ames has such a great program. Everyone knows that. It definitely set the tone. I understood what it was going to be like. Seeing the splits they put up on the heat sheets put in perspective what we were going up against."

Ottumwa head coach Staci Bergman watched the Bulldogs put up a gallant effort against their new conference rival. Finley Johnson stepped up to swim against the Little Cyclones for the first time in the 200 medley relay, joining Payne, Lilly Morrison and Willow Larsen in a third-place time of 2:03.31 before finishing fourth in the 200-yard individual medley in 2:44.65 and fifth in 100-yard freestyle in 1:04.16 while Ava Johnson led OHS with a third-place swim in the 200-yard freestyle (2:07.27) and a fourth-place swim in the 100-yard freestyle (59.72).

"We are a small, but mighty team with girls that could hang right in there with a lot of their swimmers," Bergman said. "Seeing a freshman like Finley come out there and match the energy of the Ames swimmers in the pool is fantastic. We had a lot of girls that showed up and didn't back down despite the level of competition. Those little wins are fantastic."

Ottumwa's lone win came from Larsen, who again made a run at breaking the 24-year-old school record of Laurie Bratten in the 100-yard backstroke. Larsen swam away from Jaylyn Light after the first lap, putting a 29.5-second split on the board, but couldn't quite get to the end of the second lap in less than a minute finishing Tuesday's swim in 1:00.38, just 1.01 seconds shy of the 59.37-second mark set by Bratten in 1998.

"I did kind of feel a little bit of extra pressure just because everyone thought I'd break it," Larsen said. "That was the hope. There are a lot of little things I can improve on that will take that second off. I'm happy with it. I've been really working on attacking the final 25 yards. I would like to put up a 27 or 28-second opening lap.

"I wanted to make my turns a little quicker after the first race of the season. I also want to get my stroke rate up. Those are the things I'm working on. I'm not even upset about it. The record will come when it's time for it to come."

Ottumwa (2-1, 0-1 Iowa Alliance) will hit the road for the first time next week for a meet with former CIML Metro and current Alliance rival Des Moines Lincoln next Tuesday night. Will the backstroke record fall away from the friendly confines of Mike McWilliams Pool?

"I'm actually thinking there might be a better chance for Willow to break it on the road," Bergman said. "There's not quite as much pressure away from home. That might just be the difference."

— Scott Jackson can be reached at sjackson@ottumwacourier.com. Follow him on Twitter@CourierScott.