Ankeny boys’ swimming coach Justin Crouch feels a lot better about his team following the Hawks’ 139-31 victory at Des Moines Roosevelt in a non-conference dual meet on Tuesday.
Ankeny won all 11 events and swept the top three places in seven of the eight individual races.
“Going into this meet, I knew we had a lot of guys competing for varsity spots,” Crouch said. “This team is young and relatively inexperienced, but they work hard and are hungry to get better. After this meet, I feel comfortable with a lot of these guys excelling in different races. One thing we have to get better at is consistency throughout the entire meet. I think that will come as we get into better shape and have a little more training under our belt.”
Ankeny dominated the meet without Lance Swanepoel, its top returning swimmer. Swanepoel will miss the next couple of meets while preparing to go to the Junior National meet.
“We had some guys step up in his absence, led by Owen Schwebach,” Crouch said. “His work ethic and desire to get better has really taken him to another level from last season. We are going to rely heavily on him going forward.”
Schwebach won the 200 freestyle in a time of 1:51.01. He later captured the 100 butterfly in 53.36 seconds.
Zach Zinn also took two individual events. He won the 100 freestyle in 51.43 and the 100 backstroke in 59.72.
Devin Thornton placed second in the 100 freestyle in 52.33 after earlier winning the 50 freestyle in 23.88, where he edged teammate Derek Stone by .09 seconds.
“The senior class has really shown great leadership and are showing the young swimmers how to prepare and work every day,” Crouch said. “Zach and Devin are really an interesting duo. They are great friends and competitors in and out of the pool. Their friendly rivalry in races has been a lot of fun to watch so far.”
Brock Peterson won the 200 individual medley in a time of 2:10.53. He later took second in the backstroke in 59.79, finishing just .07 seconds behind Zinn.
Finn Stukerjurgen captured the 500 freestyle in a time of 5:17.60. He was the runner-up in the 200 IM in 2:11.83.
Nathan Neppl provided Ankeny’s other individual victory in the 100 breaststroke. He was clocked in 1:05.71.
Neppl also swam on the winning 200 medley relay. He teamed up with Peterson, Calvin Howard and Thornton to post a time of 1:44.81.
The Hawks later won the 200 freestyle relay in 1:33.84. That team consisted of Schwebach, Thornton, Zinn and Stone.
Ankeny ended the meet by winning the 400 freestyle relay in 3:34.48. Stukerjurgen swam on that relay with Owen Evans, Karsten Peters and Noah Schafer.
“The continued development of Owen, Noah and Calvin really could give us some much-needed depth,” Crouch said. “Brock and Finn are competing for varsity spots along with two other freshmen–Ryan Bendezu and Nicholas Robie–and they are all showing a lot of promise. Newcomers to the team like Derek (Stone), a junior, and sophomores Ryan Lewis and Tyler Sparks are learning the kind of work we do and are adjusting but we need to continue to develop them as they may be important pieces by the end of the season.
“With that being said, there is a lot of hard work to do to get to where we want to go. This team remains a bit of a mystery, but I’m excited to see how much we can improve in a short amount of time,” he added.
The Hawks will compete in the Mike Wittmer Invitational on Saturday at Ames.