The 2023 season was a banner year for the Perry swim team, taking on five events and placing 19th overall at the state meet. That extended their streak to four years in a row making it to Marshalltown, and a fifth year looks on the table with some exciting prospects in the water.
See Quin Swim
With three appearances under her belt, Quin Mahler-Moreno has just about taken up residency at the state meet. Coming off two top-12 finishes in solo competition, Perry’s star senior is looking to become the first Jayette to qualify four times.
The biggest question: Just how will she make that happen?
Over the past three years, Mahler-Moreno has rewritten the school record book multiple times. And the ink hasn’t dried yet.
“Like last year, she got a qualifying time in the 500 right off the bat, so that gave her options,” head coach Jean Dowd before a preseason practice. “She had more qualifying times than you could swim individual events. So you’ve got to take a look at where those events sit in the program and the prelims don’t have relays involved. So it’s a whole different ballgame.”
When she last had her Perry gear on in November, Mahler-Moreno shined in the 200-yard freestyle preliminaries with a school record of 1 minute 54.35 seconds — one second faster than her previous record. She also set the new program benchmark in the 100 breaststroke at 1:05.62. She fell in the rankings during the final heat in both events, something she’ll be looking to overcome this season should she make her fourth trip to Marshalltown, building off her offseason work with the Des Moines Swim Federation.
Relay Remix
With staples like Sophia McDevitt (a solo state qualifier) and Lilly Riley graduated, junior Aleah Karolus is the only other member with experience at the state meet. That will create a swell of competition in the 200 and 400 freestyle events that the team qualified with last season.
Beyond Karolus and Mahler-Moreno, though, the Jayettes return three additional letter winners: junior Cali Hernandez, sophomore Jazmine Johnson and senior Lydia Nelson. That makes up half of the 10-girl roster this year.
“That is really going to help us out. We graduated a lot of great talent, so they've got some big shoes to fill, but nine of the 10 swimmers have participated in our summer league,” Dowd said. “So the vast majority of our team does have competitive experience.”
The team also has brought along a foreign exchange student, Ema Valenzula-Flores, who Dowd said is “such a joy to have” on the team.
With the team anchored by Mahler-Moreno’s vast experience and versatility in sprints and long distance, Perry has a whole world of opportunity to try out new events throughout the season with the rest of the depth chart to optimize their rotation.
“We'd like to get people back to state, and I want to have as many people try individual events as we can possibly accomplish this year,” Dowd said. “I want to find out what hidden talents we've got."
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Perry swim team eyes fifth-straight state appearance
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