T-R PHOTO BY ROSS THEDE - Marshalltown High School junior Jacob Seberger stands next to the MHS pool prior to a recent practice in preparation for the upcoming IHSAA State Swimming Championships at the University of Iowa’s Campus Recreation and Wellness Center in Iowa City. Seberger has qualified for both the 50-yard freestyle and 100-yard breaststroke events.

Jacob Seberger had his sights set on getting to state in the 100-yard breaststroke all along.

The 50 freestyle is just an added bonus.

Seberger kept the tradition alive on his own by getting the Marshalltown boys’ swimming team to the upcoming state meet for the ninth year in a row, qualifying in two individual events for Friday’s IHSAA State Swimming Championships at the Campus Recreation and Wellness Center in Iowa City.

Friday’s individual preliminaries begin at 5 p.m., where Seberger will be a solo act — twice — for the Bobcats a year after making his state meet debut as part of a relay team.

“It’s pretty great,” Seberger said of qualifying for state. “Last year was with a relay with a bunch of guys, so that’s obviously different, so going into individuals is something new. It should be a lot of fun, especially because now there’s finals and prelims and all that extra stuff.”

The Bobcat junior has excelled as a breaststroker since his days with the Blue Wave swim program at the Marshalltown YMCA/YWCA, but his freestyle prowess comes as no surprise. It’s a family affair, after all.

Jacob’s older brothers Isaac and Aaron both were Bobcat swimmers, and their father Paul has been a meet official for the last two years.

Before Jacob qualified for this year’s state meet, Aaron was Marshalltown’s last swimmer to reach the season-ending meet in the 50 freestyle in 2021 and 2022. Aaron still holds the siblings’ 50 free record at 21.79 seconds, while Jacob qualified with his lifetime-best time of 22.27 from Saturday’s district meet in Ames.

“[State] is always a big goal,” Jacob said. “Seeing Aaron go to state and his name is on three of the shirts that have been handed down to me, that’s kind of a big, big deal to go to state and swim fast. So hopefully that’s something attainable this year and obviously next year.”

Aaron qualified for the 50 free as a junior in 2021 and finished 20th in 22.15, and he lowered his mark in 2022 by advancing through preliminaries in 11th place with a time of 21.79. He eventually placed 20th in the finals in 22.09.

“Who knows? Maybe that could be taken down at state this weekend,” Jacob said.

And even if he does supplant big brother’s time in the 50 freestyle, there’s still little brother to contend with one day. Peter, an eighth-grader, is said to be ahead of the pace in his family’s unwritten 50 freestyle competition.

“Yeah, there’s constant banter,” Jacob said. “Peter thinks he’s on track to be the fastest and Aaron’s like ‘hey, well just beat this time by your freshman year’ and dad’s like ‘it’s not by your freshman year since you didn’t get any better since then,’ so who knows. But if I drop the fastest time in all the four years, I might have a little something on them.

“I’ll always have the breaststroke time on them because none of them are very good at that.”

Jacob is seeded 30th out of 32 qualifiers at state in both races after finishing seventh in both at districts. He’ll swim in the same heat and the same lane — Heat 1 Lane 7 — in both events Friday at the University of Iowa.

“Obviously he’s the third in the line of the Sebergers,” said MHS first-year head coach Ray Dulaney. “He always gets compared to his older brother Aaron, and as an eighth-grader he’s swimming this, swimming that compared to Aaron, and of course you don’t want to live in your brother’s shadow, but it helps that he swims the breaststroke too.

“Anytime we get a kid who’s swimming pretty seriously as a seventh- and eighth-grader it gets us excited.”

On Friday, Jacob will be compared only to his peers around the state of Iowa. He hopes to have some energy left on the back end of the taper that helped get him through districts in the first place.

“In the 100 breast I had a good race but a couple of the turns were really spotty and that definitely added some time, so hopefully if I can go to state and lock those turns down, I should be able to drop a couple more seconds,” Jacob said.

Seberger is seeded 30th in the 100 breaststroke with his personal-best time of 1 minute, 2.34 seconds. Cedar Rapids Washington’s Andrew Seifert scored the lowest qualifying time with his 53.25.

“We’re just trying to keep that taper, keep it sharp,” Dulaney said. “Turns are always kind of interesting at Ames and in Iowa City just because of the bulkhead, so getting that good turn, being explosive off the start, and there’s nothing to lose now. So just let it rip.”

Jacob said the school record in either event isn’t necessarily the goal, but would be a happy coincidence should he make his way through Friday’s preliminaries with the fastest time in school history.

“I’m excited for whatever it brings and hopefully I drop time and end pleased with myself,” he said.

Should he log one of the top-16 times in either event, Jacob will be back in the pool on Saturday for the 12:30 p.m. finals.

“The CRCW pool is gorgeous, a national-level venue, so you get that excitement, you get to see how fast other people swim at that level, and it makes you want to get back there and do those little, extra things to get there,” Dulaney said. “It helps everybody, and you’re always looking for motivation to keep going and to have that little bit more.”