MVC girls’ swimming and diving to be held at Community Natatorium

Cedar Falls has a rich high school girls’ swimming tradition.

The program has won nine state titles, including six straight from 1993-98 under legendary Coach Dick Marcussen. The Tigers added two more titles in 2003-04 under Marcussen, who started the program and coached for 47 years before retiring in 2015.

Cedar Falls has competed for years in a pool named for Marcussen, located at Holmes Junior High School. But earlier this month, the Community Natatorium, located on the high school campus, opened for use.

“We are very excited about the opening of the Community Natatorium," said Cedar Falls girls swimming coach Chelsea Szczyrbak. "There has been a lot of time, effort, and money put into the facility from the broad Cedar Valley and it is a joy to get to be a part of it all."

The state-of-the-art facility is a collaborative project between the Cedar Falls School District, the city of Cedar Falls and community members. It is a two-pool aquatic center for public use, one a 10-lane competition pool and the other a shallower, four-lane pool for teaching and recreation.

This week will mark one of the first major competitions as the facility hosts the Mississippi Valley Conference girls’ swimming and diving meet. The diving portion of the meet will be held Thursday, beginning at 5 p.m., with swim events set to begin at noon on Saturday.

As the Tiger program makes the move from the Marcussen pool to the Community Natatorium, it does so with one of the state's top programs. Cedar Falls finished third at last year's state meet and is ranked No. 3 in the power rankings behind West Des Moines Dowling and Waukee Northwest.

Szczyrbak, who was a standout swimmer during her high school career at Iowa City West then collegiately at Northern Iowa, said the move to the new facility has given her team additional space for practice and several other new amenities as well.

"A video board and numerical board allow spectators to have increased insight on what is going on throughout the meet," she said. "Our capacity for spectators and athletes has greatly increased with this new space. It is a blessing to have this type of facility in Cedar Falls."

Last season, the Tigers ended Iowa City West’s six-year reign as league champs, winning six events to finish with 475 points, well ahead of West (321) and Linn-Mar.

The Tigers are even a bigger favorite this year. West at No. 10, is the next highest ranked MVC team in the power rankings. Some of the top individuals for Cedar Falls include senior Taytem Lehmann in the sprint freestyle events and freshman Maelyn Woltz in the 200-yard freestyle.

The 100 breaststroke could be a battle between the state's two best in the event so far this year. Waterloo West junior Lucy Parson and Linn-Mar freshman Caite Schaffel have the two best times statewide entering the meet. Schaffel also is ranked second in the 200 individual medley and fifth in the 500 freestyle.

Iowa City West freshman Nora Landon is ranked third in the 100 butterfly while Linn-Mar freshman Teresa Zhang is fifth in the 100 backstroke

Szczyrbak and her team are looking forward to hosting at their new facility on Saturday.

"We are very excited about hosting the MVC conference meet at the new Community Natatorium," she said. "It means a lot to us and our team that we are at our new home pool and we get the chance to show off all of the hard work everyone has been putting in.

"There will be 11 MVC teams attending on Thursday and Saturday. The (athletics directors, coaches and swimmers) are a tight-knit community and we are excited about having all of them here."