Swimmers break personal goals on senior night

Swimmers break personal goals on senior night

In the last home meet of the season, senior Sarah Barry had a goal to greet. Facing off against Algona and Decorah on the 500-yard freestyle, Barry had been working for four years to break seven minutes and finally slipped through with a time of 6:59 on Tuesday.

“It kind of erupted in here when that happened. She’s been working really hard to do that,” said head coach Amy Johnson. “It finally happened, and it happened on senior night, so it was just a great thing for her to experience that.”

The team only had nine girls swimming against their competitors and spent the night pulling double- and triple-duty. But the swimmers took on the challenge with resolve, Johnson said, keeping times consistent with the rest of the season and shaving off some key seconds.

Bailee Wilts took seconds off her 100-yard freestyle, clocking in at 1:10, and Olivia Ayers pushed closer to her goal of lowering her 500-yard freestyle with a 7:21, which Johnson said was one of her recent top times.

Charles City took an overall third place between the teams. The team’s lineup came together to take in some of the brunt, with junior Sandra Bontemps in particular stepping up to swim back-toback relays.

“She had to swim 850 yards tonight. That’s a lot for a meet,” Johnson said. “I really appreciated her effort. I asked her to do some pretty tough things tonight.”

With the last home meet behind them, Comet swimmers face the most important weekends of their season with conference and districts coming up. Johnson said with the potential to cut times even further, some swimmers could be reaching the state meet.

“Sarah Walker, she’s got a big job ahead of her,” Johnson said. “She’s going to have to cut a few seconds [for regionals], but I’m hoping if she gets rested enough she can do that.”

By Kate Hayden khayden@charlescitypress.com