College-bound swimmers chasing time drops with club meets

IOWA CITY – The Iowa Flyers swim club has been a part of Emma Hruby's life since she was 10 years old. With no high school swim program at Clear Creek Amana High School, the Flyers are the only swim teammates the senior has known.

'It's going to be bittersweet saying goodbye to all of them and see some of us go off to different colleges,” Hruby said before the third day of the Iowa Swimming Short Course Championships Saturday at the UI Campus and Recreation Center pool. 'There's a lot of work and pushing each other that goes on here that I think has really benefited all of us. It's definitely something that keeps you coming back.”

The short course (distances measured in yards instead of meters) championships began Thursday, with 38 events for each gender across four days of competition. Each swimmer can participate in a maximum of six events.

The meet differs from a traditional high school meet in that there are a much-wider range of distance options for each stroke, as well as preliminary races in each event that serve as a qualifier for the final race.

'I like the prelims and finals (format),” Iowa Flyers distance swimmer Aidan Keen said. 'It kind of depends on my mood, I guess. Whether I want to do one swim and done, or just do two swims and done. Sometimes it's fun and sometimes it's tiring.”

Keen is one of several Flyers who have successfully balanced club participation with high school swimming throughout his prep career. The 10-event high school state champion for Iowa City West will swim for Missouri in the fall, while Will Scott and Mark McGlaughlin – Keen's teammates both at West and with the Flyers – are bound for Division I swim programs as well (Iowa and North Carolina State, respectively). A fifth Flyer - backstroke state champion Nick Saulnier - is headed to Minnesota.

Like Saulnier and Scott, Hruby is also headed to the Big Ten for swimming after signing with Northwestern in November.

'I think that they're on the rise and I really wanted to be a part of that,” Hruby said.

Like the Olympic champions she idolizes (Breeja Larson and Rebecca Soni), Hruby is a strong breaststroke swimmer and is inching toward an Olympic Trials cut in the 200 meter.

Many attribute a jump in swim club enrollment over the past decade to the impact made by Olympians such as Larson, Soni and 18-time gold medalist Michael Phelps.

'I think it's kind of been a long time coming for the sport,” Hruby said. 'USA Swimming has done a great job in growing the sport. … There's also a lot of legacies in swimming, too. You see a lot of parents who swam and now their kids are swimming and they're starting to get good.”

The short course championships, hosted by the Cedar Rapids Aquatics Association, conclude Sunday.

l Comments: douglas.miles@thegazette.com