IOWA CITY — The Marshalltown boys’ swimming team managed to shave even more time off from its lifetime bests, making the most of its final go-round this winter.

The Bobcats sent two relays into the pool on Saturday at the University of Iowa Aquatic Center, coming away with pride in their progress but no points to show for their achievements.

Marshalltown’s 200-yard medley relay team took more than a second off its season-best time, while the 200 freestyle relay contingent sliced another half-second off its best clocking from this campaign.

The all-senior 200 medley relay quartet of Michael Lechnir, Sam Greazel, Charlie Gilbertson and Lincoln Barker clocked in at 1 minute, 41.25 seconds, to hold their spot in 18th place from district seeding. It was more than a second faster than the Bobcats’ time from districts (1:42.40), and even a paddle or two faster than when the same foursome swam at state last year (1:41.49) to place 19th.

The Bobcats were just less than a second out of 16th place, as Grinnell achieved the final scoring spot in the state relay with a time of 1:40.31.

“It wound up being the same medley relay that swam at state last year and they dropped over a second,” said outgoing head coach Mike Loupee. “We held our place but dropped time. Like I tell the guys, we can only control what goes on in our lane.”

The same went for the Bobcats’ 200 freestyle relay, which improved two positions from being seeded 22nd and clocked in 20th at 1:31.68. The foursome of Lechnir, sophomore Jacob Seberger, junior Kade Randall and Barker bettered their district time of 1:32.21 by 55-hundredths of a second.

Going into the day, Loupee said he hadn’t even decided who was going to swim the final race of the season.

“I told the kids that I wasn’t going to make a final decision on who was going to swim the relay until after I saw the medley,” Loupee said. “It was probably nerve-wracking for them, but I was trying to make sure I made the best decisions for the team and for the relay.

“I decided to go with the lineup that got us there from districts, and I’m very proud of the fact that Kade and Jacob both swam lifetime-bests.”

The decision was a daunting one for Loupee, he said, because his seniors have done everything he’s asked of them over four years and he wanted to honor them with one last race at state.

Loupee said the seniors up for consideration made the choice a lot easier for him.

“Both Charlie and Sam were swimming well, and you want to make sure you do right by them, but at the same token the young ones need a taste (of state),” Loupee said. “They need to feel that excitement and hopefully that stokes the fire for them for the next couple of years.

“Both Charlie and Sam said ‘we’ll do whatever you feel is right, coach,’ and you can’t ask for having better seniors than that.”

Marshalltown finished a little more than two seconds off 16th place, as Lewis Central earned the final scoring spot at 1:29.44.

Dubuque Hempstead totaled 160.5 team points for its first state swimming championship. Waukee was second at 129.5, followed by Linn-Mar (127), and Iowa City West and Cedar Falls (111).