Litterer makes it ‘back’ to state swim meet

By John Burbridge sports@charlescitypress.com

CHARLES CITY — You’ve heard of the cutup critique: “If you moved any slower, you’d be going backwards.”

Charles City junior Nick Litterer moves pretty fast while going backwards … or at least he’s getting faster.

At the Fort Dodge District State-Qualifier Swim Meet on Saturday, Litterer — while swimming with the Mason City Mohawks — recorded a personal-best time of 54.30 seconds in the 100 backstroke, which was good enough for third place while qualifying Litterer for state in the individual event for the second-straight season.

Since the start of the season, Litterer has dropped 3 seconds in the 100 back. Currently, he is ranked second for Mason City’s all-time best time in the event.

“I’m still about a second and a half away,” Litterer said. “That’s a lot in swimming, but I was able to drop a lot this year.”

At last year’s IHSAA State Meet at the Marshalltown YMCA, Litterer placed 17th in the 100 back. For this year’s meet, which has been moved to the University of Iowa Aquatics Center in Iowa City and will take place this Saturday, Litterer is seeded 17th overall and No. 1 in his heat.

Litterer also is a repeat state qualifier in the 200 medley relay. At Fort Dodge, the team of Litterer — who swam the opening backstroke leg —, Derek Johnson, Mason Berg and Randy Vaughan won the 200 medley with a time of 1:39.24.

The foursome will be seeded No. 9 in Iowa City.

Litterer, Berg, Vaughan and Ben Hehr also qualified in the 400 freestyle relay with a fifth-place time of 3:19.65 at districts.

Litterer has been swimming competitively since he was 7 years old when he started with the Charles City YMCA Swim Team. He is still active in the YMCA program.

Though he was a freshman when Charles City High School still had a swimming team — it was a girls team — Litterer doesn’t have a memory of a Comet boys team.

“From what I know, that was way back into the 90s … long before I came along,” he said. “I already knew that if I wanted to swim in high school that I would have to go to Mason City.

“I’m used to the travel by now. I love swimming and I’m willing to make those long trips.”

Even when they’re all the way to Iowa City.