When perennial high school swimming powers West Des Moines Valley and Cedar Rapids Washington get together each winter for a dual meet, there’s more than prestige on the line.

There’s also “Biff,” a traveling trophy resembling a boy riding atop a dolphin.

“It’s gone back and forth for the better part of 30 years,” says Warrior Coach Chris Cruise, who still holds the school record for the breaststroke from almost 20 years ago. “I think it came out of a trash can.”

Apparently born from an inside joke between legendary Washington coach Jim Voss and his Valley counterpart at the time, the trophy was there for taking Saturday afternoon on the winners’ stand at the Wash pool.

Valley came into the competition ranked third in the state’s power rankings, while Washington was fifth.  The winner would take custody of Biff.

And it meant  so much that star Warrior sophomore Jared Thorson was in tears when it went home with Valley after the Tigers won the final race of the day.  They also won the meet 87-83.

“It sucks,” Thorson said, “that I lost the Biff.”

Indeed, he was the anchor on the meet-deciding 400-yard freestyle relay finale.  And he did lose a paper-thin lead going down the stretch, overtaken at the end by less than a second.

But Thorson had already won the individual butterfly event earlier and brought in a win on the 200 freestyle relay.

In the last, longer relay, he swam a 49.3 second leg, his best time of the season which would have been fast enough to win the open 100 free.

“The swimmer from Valley turns in a 47-flat,” Cruise said. “We fell victim to a great swim.

“That race was for all the marbles. We swam great, but it wasn’t quite good enough.”

Warrior senior Josh Hughes, who collected two individual wins and one relay victory, had given his quartet a slight edge on his opening leg.  Senior Ryo Ueno and freshman Nick Saulnier stretched the lead slightly.  And, in the end, the two posted times ranked second and third in the state so far this year.

“This was our best meet of the season by a long, long shot,” said Hughes.  “We did the best we could have done. Almost everybody had their best times of the year, and we got points when we needed them.

“Valley crushed us last year. And this is the closest we’ve come to them in the last three years.”

Cruise was delighted with the way his swimmers performed.

“It was an awesome meet,” he said. “We had a fantastic meet, top to bottom.

“On paper, Valley came in with considerable better times than we had. So, we switched some things around to take advantage of our strengths.

“Everything worked out so that it came down to the last event.”

And in that one, the Warriors dropped five seconds off their season’s best. But the Tigers dropped their time by eight seconds.

For his part, Thorson was hardly consoled.

But Washington and Valley will hook up again next Saturday in the same pool for the annual eight-team Jim Voss Invitational meet.

“I want to make up for losing the Biff,” Thorson said. “Next time I want to beat them in the 400 relay.”

WEST DES MOINES VALLEY 87, WASHINGTON 83

Winners

200 medley relay - Valley 1:40.27
200 free - Ryo Ueno (CRW) 1:51.67
200 IM - Josh Hughes (CRW) 2:03.10
50 free - Sam Gorham (WDMV) 22.51
100 fly - Jared Thorson (CRW) 53.09
100 free - Alex Bodin (WDMV) 49.92
500 free - Hughes (CRW) 5:09.20
200 free relay - Washington (Nick Durin, Ueno, Hughes, Thorson) 1:30.32
100 back - Nick Saulnier (CRW) 55.34
100 breast - Jaden VanDike (WDMV) 1:02.33
400 free relay - Valley 3:17.84