On Oct. 27, the Pleasant Valley Girls Swim and Dive Team competed in their district meet and came in second to Bettendorf. The annual district meet doubles as the state qualifying meet. PV had one diver, eleven swimmers and all three relays qualify. Athletes qualified in 10 out of the 11 swim events. Coach Frank DeMaria said, “The girls did a really good job cheering everyone on and encouraging their teammates, which helped us have so many people make state.”
The district meet started on Thursday night at Davenport Central with the diving portion. Sophomore, Emily Clark, qualified for state with a score of 343.9 points in the eleven dives event.
The meet kicked off with a 2nd place finish from Danielle Nauman, Taylor Buhr, Libby Staver and Christy Bishop in the 200 medley relay with a 1:48.75. The time earned them a 4th place seed at the state meet. Next was the 200 freestyle and Staver took 2nd with a time of 1:54.89. Freshman Abby Buechel placed 4th, and senior Grace Schons took 7th. All three athletes qualified for the state meet.
Next came the 200 IM. Buhr finished 3rd and North Scott athlete, Jordan Neymeyer, placed 5th for Pleasant Valley. Their times earned them an 11th and 14th seed at state. Sophomore, Abby Minor, also competed in the event. After the 200 IM came the 50 freestyle, the shortest event at the meet. Senior Lauren Groenenboom placed 2nd with a time of 24.65, earning her the 15th seed at the state meet. Bishop placed 3rd with a 21st seed at the state meet. Freshman North Scott athlete, Grace Veach, also swam the event for the PV team.
Next was the 100 fly with Alix Dalmasso in 6th and Nauman in 7th. Minor also swam the butterfly event. After came the 100 freestyle, with Groenenboom and Buechel placing 4th and 5th. Both qualified for the event at state. Freshman Lauren Puthoff also competed in the 100 freestyle.
Then came the longest event, the 500 freestyle. Staver won the event with a 5:06.97 and punched her ticket to state. She is ranked 5th, the highest individual state rank for PV this year. Schons placed 3rd, and junior Carly Lundry also competed and qualified in the top 24 for the state meet.
Groenenboom, Bishop, Nauman and Buhr participated in the second relay of the day, the 200 freestyle relay. They placed 3rd and are ranked 6th going into the state meet. Buhr stated, “Competing at districts for the first time was an amazing experience that I’ll never forget. I thought it was so cool how everyone came together to support and cheer for everyone.” Next came the 100 backstroke swam by Nauman, Veach and Dalmasso. Nauman placed 4th and Veach came in 5th. All three qualified for the state meet: Nauman in 16th, Veach in 17th and Dalmasso in 27th.
PV had three state qualifiers in the last individual event of the day: 100 breastroke. Buhr placed 2nd with a 6th place seed at the state meet and a time of 1:07.28. Bishop placed 3rd and Neymeyer 5th with 9th and 18th seeds at the state meet. Buhr also stated, “Going into state ranked 6th definitely added a lot of pressure to do well individually. Although there was a lot of pressure added to being ranked 6th, it still helped my confidence going into the meet.”
In the last event of the afternoon, PV’s team of Buechel, Neymeyer, Groenenboom and Staver swam the 400 freestyle relay and placed 2nd. They are headed into state with a 4th place seed.
