Girls swimming: Ottumwa swimmers compete at Burlington

Sep. 26—BURLINGTON — Ottumwa secured a pair of runner-up finishes in the 200 and 400 free relay races on Saturday at the Burlington Grayhound Invitational.

Davenport Central edged Ottumwa's Mac Payne, Willow Larsen, Ava and Finley Johnson in both relays, beating the Bulldogs by three seconds in both the 200-yard and 400-yard relays. Davenport Central won the team title with 492 points while Ottumwa battled their way to a fourth-place finish with 232 total points.

"It was not an overall best performance as the team showed some fatigue after a week of tough practices," Ottumwa head girls swimming coach Staci Bergman said. "The focus of the week was not preparation for this invitational, but more about making a hard push to get the swimmers closer to their season goals."

Larsen added a runner-up swim in the 100-yard breaststroke, finishing two seconds behind Isabel Heller who won the race for Davenport Central in 1:09.28. Larsen led a trio of Bulldogs to top-five finishes in the 100-yard freestyle with Ava Johnson and Finley Johnson placing fourth and fifth, respectively, in a race where the top four swimmers all completed the race in less than a minute led by a winning 54.71-second swim by Davenport Central's Hannah Cousins.

Ava Johnson finished third in the 200-yard freestyle, less than three seconds behind the winning time of 2:06.59 posted by Muscatine's Madeline Fisher. Hannalee Songer, Lilly Morrison, Mac Payne and Finley Johnson finished fourth for Ottumwa in the 200-yard medley relay while Lillyann Morrison finished fifth for the Bulldogs in the 500-yard freestyle race.

Ottumwa will be back in the pool on Thursday at home, welcoming Centerville and Keokuk to Mike McWilliams Pool for Senior Night starting at 5:30 p.m.