PHOTO BY TROY HYDE/NEWTON NEWS - Marshalltown senior Sam Greazel competes in the 100-yard breaststroke during Saturday’s district swimming meet at Ames High School. Greazel finished fourth in the event with a time of 1 minute, 1.62 seconds, qualifying for state in the process.

AMES — The Marshalltown boys’ swimming squad raced the clock — and won.

The Bobcats qualified seven entrants for the upcoming IHSAA State Swimming Championships with Saturday’s fourth-place finish at the district meet at Ames High School, wowing their head coach in his last hurrah.

“The boys swam out of their brains today,” Marshalltown head coach Mike Loupee said. “The number of time drops and amount of time the kids dripped, it’s one of the best tapers I’ve ever been a part of. We’re extremely proud of how the kids performed today.”

Marshalltown totaled 260 points to finish just back of Boone for fourth place in Saturday’s eight-team invitational. West Des Moines Valley won with 468 points, followed by Ames (334), boone (268) and the Bobcats.

MHS was powered by a pair of runner-up finishes on the day. The 200-yard medley relay team of seniors Landon Stanley, Sam Greazel, Charlie Gilbertson and Michael Lechnir scored silver with a time of 1 minute, 42.40 seconds, and Gilbertson got second in the 100 butterfly with his time of 54.78.

Both events qualified for state as well, leading the charge as Marshalltown posted season- or lifetime-best times on 35 of 36 swims on the day.

“Our managers give me a sheet of times that’s highlighted with our season-best times and LTBs, and the whole side of the page is colored,” Loupee said. “Looking at the time drops and it’s not a half second, or one or two seconds — we’re talking four, five, six seconds across the board.

“I’m kinda stammering right now. I can’t tell you how proud I am of these kids. They worked their butts off and it paid off today.”

Lincoln Barker and Greazel, both seniors, will be a part of four events at state. Barker finished fifth in the 200 freestyle on Saturday and qualified with the 32nd and final time of 1:50.10. Barker took sixth in the 500 freestyle to advance with a time of 5:01.39, and the 200 freestyle relay squad of Lechnir, sophomore Jacob Seberger, junior Kade Randall and Barker was fourth in 1:32.21. The relay made it to state by just 13-hundreths of a second.

Greazel got to state in two individual events: the 200 individual medley (2:04.00) and the 100 breaststroke (1:01.62). He was fifth in the medley and more than three seconds ahead of the state cutoff, and he took fourth in the breaststroke with the 22nd-best time in districts from across the state.

Marshalltown’s “one downer of the day,” according to Loupee, was the 400 freestyle relay’s absence from the qualifiers list. The Bobcat quartet of Lechnir, Gilbertson, Barker and Greazel dropped 8.5 seconds off its season-best time, swimming 3:21.85 for fifth place at districts. The cutoff time was 3:21.51 — just 32-hundreths of a second faster than the Bobcats.

“On a scale of 1-to-10, it was a 9 day because we didn’t get the 400 free relay in,” Loupee said. “But it’s been a while since we’ve had that many events in for state. It’s a special group of seniors and they performed really well today.”

Loupee and assistant coach Ray Dulaney were named as the district’s Coaching Staff of the Year at the conclusion of the meet.

“Coach of the year is always a reflection of how the kids performed, and the kids made us look good today,” Loupee said.

The state meet is this Friday and Saturday at the University of Iowa’s Campus Recreation and Wellness Center.