Boone swim and dive team advances to state meet

The Boone swim and dive team competed for a chance to go to the state tournament at the state qualifiers on Nov. 2.

Despite the Toreadors graduating a lot after last season and having some uncertain pieces, head coach Chris Mann said he saw those pieces fall together.

“I told our girls ‘we have a lot of work to do if we want even a chance to qualify for the state meet’ and that was an end goal for us all year,” Mann said. “They just kept working through the year.”

Boone’s 200 medley relay, consisting of freshman Avery Howie, sophomore Rachel Ungs, junior Brooke Lile and senior Josalyn Elmquist, qualified for the state meet after its performance at state qualifiers.

Mann said all four put together good practices and made sure they were ready to contribute their part to the relay, eventually dropping five seconds off of their relay time, which helped them earn their spot at state.

“It’s just day in and day out all your focus being on yards and yards and yards to perfect one race that might take 25 to 30 seconds,” Mann said.

He added that with the medley relay team also having a member of each class on it, it bodes well for the Toreadors’ future and he thinks even getting into state will springboard the team’s confidence going forward as well.

Both Lile and Elmquist have been to state before, with Lile competing in the relay before while Elmquist went last season as an alternate, and their experience was a positive for the team as well.

Mann said that since Lile has been to state before, she knew what it takes to get back, and she led the team by example with her quiet leadership and being the anchor on the relay.

“Josalyn, just having been there, you get the level of excitement that the state meet brings and you can’t get that at any other meet during the regular season,” Mann said. “And that just carried forward for a whole year.”

He added that it’s awesome that Elmquist will get to experience that excitement herself as her last competitive swim since she is a senior this year.

With Elmquist the only one graduating from this year’s team and after the growth Mann saw this season, the future is positive for the Toreadors.

Mann said the improvement was off the charts, saying the swimmers dropped time he never thought would happen.

“A lot of these girls swam middle school for us back in February and March, and the times that they’re putting in now are unreal, like the amount of growth they had this year and the way they stepped up,” Mann said.

He added that though Boone had a smaller team, each person on the team really cared about the team and loved to swim, which also helped their improvement.

The 200 medley relay team will compete at the state meet beginning at 11 a.m. Nov. 10 at the Marshalltown YMCA/YWCA.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Boone swim and dive team advances to state meet