Charles City YMCA Swim Team qualifies 8 to state meet

By John Burbridge sports@charlescitypress.com

CHARLES CITY — You expect the captain to go down with the ship.

The Charles City YMCA Swim Team did not have a captain — or rather make that a coach — but July Marty wasn’t going to let it sink, nonetheless.

“Someone needed to step up and take over,” said Marty, who filled the team’s coaching void in efforts to keep the program going.

“I wanted there to be something for kids who still want to swim around here,” she said.

It wasn’t too long ago that Charles City was a hotspot for aspiring swimmers. The old Charles City Middle School had one of the few eight-lane pools in the state.

“Swimmers from Mason City would come out here to swim,” Marty said.

Now, Charles City swimmers travel to Mason City as the high school scrapped its program and the aforementioned eight-lane pool has been since drained as the future of the old middle school building remains in limbo.

The YMCA team had held practices and meets at the middle school pool.

“But since the school district took that away from us, we’ve got to practice here,” Marty said of the four-lane pool at the YMCA.

Even with numbers down to 32 this season, practicing in the YMCA pool has been a challenge.

“We’ve had to split our practices up between the younger swimmers and the older swimmers,” Marty said. “You only have so much room to work with.

“Plus, we have to work our schedule around the adult swim programs they have here.”

Despite the hardships, the Charles City YMCA Swim Team qualified eight swimmers to the YMCA State Meet to take place this weekend at the Marshalltown YMCA.

The qualifiers include AnnMarie Hansen, Bennett Hansen, Ezra Wilson, Trent Rodruck, Kelsey Kane, Marly Hagarty, Madelyn Tjaden and Marty’s daughter, Katlyn Marty.

Due to spring break plans, only five of the eight will swim in Marshalltown. They include Rodruck, who will swim in the boys 8-and-under 25 and 50 backstrokes; Hagarty, who will swim in the 15-and-over 50 freestyle and 50 breaststroke; and Kane, Marty and Tjaden, who will swim with Hagarty in the 15-and-over 200 freestyle relay.

The state meet will conclude the YMCA season, which began in November.

Whether or not they ever add water again for a rebirth of the old middle school pool, Marty hopes next year the team will be able to host a few meets.

“If it’s here, it will have to be only a two-team dual,” she said. “But swim meets bring a lot of parents, and there’s not a lot of room on the deck for seating.

“We wouldn’t want anyone falling in the pool.”