DES MOINES — Perry left four teams in their wake after finishing second at the Polar Bear Invitational at Des Moines North Saturday.
Veteran head coach Jean Dowd was quite pleased with the performance of her team and said she believed it Perry had not placed as high at the meet since 2003, while DM North officials reported the Jayettes had not placed second since 1996 — before any of the current team members were born.
Storm Lake won the meet with 308 points, with Perry the runner-up at 192. Algona (179), DM North (172), Oskaloosa (164) and DM Hoover (143) filled the final four team spots.
Points were awarded to 12th place, with each team allowed a maximum of two entrants in each event. That format favors the schools, like Perry, with smaller squads, as the larger teams cannot overwhelm the others by sheer numbers, thus increasing their odds of scoring in each race. Podium spots were awarded to the first six placers, with the Jayettes earning 11 trips to the awards stand.
The Jayettes set season-best times in both the 200 and 400 freestyle relays, dropping an impressive 11 seconds in later.
Vivian Gonzalez, Sadee Whitfield, Anna Ridnour and Breanna Penenger swam in the 400 free relay, finishing in 4 minutes, 40.25 seconds to place third, with a second-place finish in the 200 free by Ridnour, Whitfield, Haley Vaughn and Haileigh Kenyon in 1:59.29 one of three runner-up placings for Perry.
The other two came from Kenyon, who touched second in both the 100 (1:00.67) and 200 free (2:17.62) races. She was joined on the podium in the former by Whitfield, who was fifth in 1:11.92, and in the later by Ridnour, who touched fourth in 2:32.26.
Gonzalez, Vaughn, Kenyon and Penenger were third in the 200 medley relay in 2:18.48, with Penenger fourth in the 200 individual medley (2:49.87), with Gonzalez seventh (31.38) and Whitfield ninth (33.43) in the 50 free.
Vaughn swam to third in the 100 butterfly (1:11.22), with Penenger fourth in the 500 free (6:28.31) while Gonzalez was fifth in the 100 backstroke (1:21.48) and Vaughn fourth (1:19.78) and Ridnour eighth (1:34.01) in the 100 breaststroke.
The Perry marching band, of which Gonzalez and Penenger are members, played in a competition at Fort Dodge Saturday at 5 p.m. and Dowd wished to publicly thank Blue Brigade director Brandon Weeks for allowing the two swimmers/musicians to take to the water in Des Moines before taking to the field 90 miles north later in the day.
Perry will host Des Moines East at the MCB pool Tuesday. The meet will begin at 6:30 p.m.
