Beek buoys Bobcats at state

IOWA CITY -- Adele Beek did something a Bobcat girls swimmer hadn't done in a decade, and she's got a year left to do it better yet.

Beek made the finals of the 100-yard breaststroke in leading Marshalltown with a seventh-place finish at the Iowa Girls State Swimming and Diving Championships on Friday at the Campus Recreation & Wellness Center at the University of Iowa.

Beek advanced to state with eighth-best qualifying time, lowered it to reach the finals (top 8) during Thursday's preliminaries, and swam to seventh place in Friday's event finals.

The Marshalltown junior became the program's highest state finisher since Raechel Hannam came in second in the same event -- the 100 breaststroke -- in 2015.

Beek and the Bobcats emerged from the state meet with 22.5 points, good for 24th place, on the strength of three scoring swims and another top-16 diver. Harlie Thatcher, a senior, scored 14th place in Thursday's state diving competition in her second straight season of reaching the finale.

Thatcher improved 10 spots from her junior campaign, making it through each round of cuts to finish with an 11-dive total of 345 points.

Thatcher's top dive on Thursday came in the fifth round on a back somersault with 1 1/2 twists. The 2.3 degree-of-difficulty dive yielded her a high score of 47.15, drawing a 7.5 from one of the judges and a 7 on three of the seven judges' scorecards.

It was both her most difficult and best executed dive of the day, arriving just in time to help her advance through the first round of cuts.

The field of 32 pared down to 20 for three more rounds of diving, Thatcher again advanced to qualify for the top 16.

Thursday's swimming preliminaries was a productive one for the Bobcats as well. All three individual qualifiers moved through to Friday's finals, and two of them were Leia Hernandez. The senior sprinter was seeded 12th in the 50 freestyle and nearly held her qualifying time, advancing in 10th place with a time of 24.60 seconds. In Friday's finals, Hernandez finished 12th in 24.72.

In the 100 freestyle, Hernandez was seeded 16th in 54.25 and lowered that with Thursday's preliminary time of 53.98 to tie for 14th with Pleasant Valley's Sarah Peters. In Friday's finals, the same two swimmers tied for 14th again with a time of 54.21.

Beek slimmed more time off her 100 breaststroke qualifying time (1:07.60), settling in eighth in 1:06.93. In the finals, Beek was unable to hold the time but took seventh place in 1:08.08 for the Bobcats' best finish in more than 10 years.

Beek swam a faster preliminary time in the 200 individual medley as well, moving up from 32nd seed to place 30th in 2:20.07.

The Bobcats' 200 freestyle relay just missed out on the top 16 as the quartet of Beek, Addison Elmore, Drea Ceren and Hernandez settled for 17th in a season-best time of 1:42.45.

Marshalltown's 200 medley relay team of Elmore, Beek, Emma Case and Ceren opened the meet with a 24th-place finish in 1:55.62, just missing their qualifying mark, and the 400 freestyle relay foursome of Elmore, Case, Ceren and Hernandez closed out the meet with a season-best time of 3:49.15 for 25th place.

Dowling Catholic captured the state title with 294 team points, followed by Cedar Falls (209) and a two-way tie for third between Bettendorf and Waukee Northwest (181).