IOWA CITY – Surprising Washington claimed the Mississippi Division title and finished third overall Saturday in the Mississippi Valley Conference Boys Swimming Championships at Mercer Park Aquatic Center.

Linn-Mar finished fourth in the Mississippi Division and seventh overall, Kennedy was sixth in the Mississippi Division and ninth overall, and Jefferson was fourth in the Valley Division and 10th overall.

Top-ranked Cedar Falls won the Valley Division and was the overall champion.

Washington, ranked eighth in the state power rankings, enjoyed an afternoon filled with strong individual and team efforts that earned multiple spots on the podium. Morgan Barnes finished second in the 200-yard freestyle and Ian Ford finished third in the 200 individual medley.

Mo Green also made a huge contribution, finishing fourth in the 100 butterfly and swimming the butterfly leg on the second-place 200 medley relay.

Green was pleased with the overall result and praised his teammates’ efforts.

“We had time drops pretty much everywhere on the board," Green said. "In some events we didn’t expect to score a lot of points, (yet) we made the podium and furthered our lead against City High.”

Green and the rest of the Warriors hope to build off their success and carry their momentum into their last two meets -- districts in two weeks and the state meet Feb. 12 at Marshalltown.

“We want to win every meet from now on,” he said.

Linn-Mar had a number of top six finishes. Sophomore Nathan Greve was fourth in the 100 backstroke and the 200 medley relay team was sixth.

Coach Ralph Cortez was very pleased with the Lions' results.

“Today’s performances were great," he said. "As far as performance goes, we’ve had guys drop times today and our team chemistry is high at the moment, too.”

Cortez said his team has “improved immensely” and the drops in times are due to his team’s efforts out of the pool and in the weight room.

“They’ve put a lot of hard work in," he said. "(They’re) all at workouts and know what they want to get out of their hard work in the end.  Our team chemistry is high at the moment, too.”

Kennedy's Chandler Heisler finished fourth in the 50 free and sixth in the 100 frees. The Cougars' John Richardson was fifth in the 100 back.

Kennedy Coach Shawn Thomsen remained optimistic.

“I was very pleased with the finish today," he said. "There were multiple outstanding swims, including 31 out of 44 best times.  We’re a young team, mostly sophomores, and we’re learning along the way. Nine out of 12 swimmers were underclassmen."

Jefferson’s achievements came in a few spurts. Kristian Anderson placed sixth in the 50 freestyle and ninth in the 100 free.  The J-Hawks also placed sixth in the 400 free relay and eighth in the 200 free relay.

“Basically our game plan today was to come in and put together a few good relays together for sure and just a bit of practice for district for more of the individual events,” Jefferson Coach Ryan York said.  "Our goal is to get two relays to state and work on some individual stuff as well.  We’ve had some really good weeks of training over Christmas and we’re looking pretty strong.”

TEAMS

Valley Division -- 1. Cedar Falls 494, 2. Hempstead 389, 3. Iowa City West 382, 4. Jefferson 279, 5. Waterloo East 141.

Mississippi Division -- 1. Washington 426, 2. Iowa City High 387, 3. Dubuque Senior 372, 4. Linn-Mar 229, 5. Waterloo West 217, 6. Kennedy 179.

200 medley relay -- 1. Cedar Falls (Langner, JaSund, Burks, Baker) 1:40.99, 2. Washington (Ford, Hughes, Green, Allison) 1:41.14, 3. Dubuque Senior (Gill, Bailey, Yuan, Duster) 1:43.70, 6. Linn-Mar (Belin, Greve, Raiche, Bloom) 1:46.79, 9. Kennedy (Richardson, Green, Boomershine, Holmes) 1:54.47, 10. Jefferson (Padima, Kleinheinz, Jourdan, Khorsand) 1:56.71; 200 free -- 1. Austin Abbas (CF) 1:44.04, 2. Morgan Barnes (CRW) 1:45.79, 3. Colin McAllister (ICH) 1:46.79, 7. Brian Kopec (CRW) 1:52.00, 11. Alex Kleinheinz (CRJ) 1:54.66, 14. Luke Herny (CRW) 1:57.41; 200 IM -- 1. Josh Sund (CF) 1:59.32, 2. Connor Huff (DS) 1:59.56, 3. Ian Ford (CRW) 2:03.50, 6. Josh Hughes (CRW) 2:06.92, 11. Nathan Greve (LM) 2:10.81, 12. Mo Green (CRW) 2:11.45; 50 free -- 1. Ben Loeffelholz (DH) 22.06, 2. Kaisen Yao (ICW) 22.08, 3. Alex Duster (DS) 22.64, 4. Chandler Heisler (CRK) 22.75, 6. Kristian Anderson (CRJ) 22.99, 7. Drew Bloom (LM) 23.17, 9. Scott Allison (CRW) 23.28, 12. Nick Furstin (CRW) 23.47, 15. Scott Wilke (CRJ) 23.97, 16. Sam Raiche (LM) 24,11; 100 fly -- 1. Loeffelholz (DH) 53.30, 2. Taylor Burks (CF) 54.13, 3. Huff (DS) 55.11, 4. Green (CRW) 55.23, 9. S.Raiche (LM) 58.84, 11. Logan Barnes (CRW) 59.10, 12. Josh Kehoe (CRW) 59.65; 100 free -- 1. JoSund (CF) 48.01, 2. Sid McMillin (ICH) 48.59, 3. Jon Baker (CF) 49.19, 6. Heisler (CRK) 50.50, 9. Anderson (CRJ) 50.73, 10. Hughes (CRW) 51.10, 11. Allison (CRW) 51.13, 14. Bloom (LM) 51.96, 15. Wilke (CRJ) 52.27; 500 free -- 1. McAllister (ICH) 4:42.39, 2. Cam Herting (ICH) 4:48.67, 3. M.Barnes (CRW) 4:55.49, 7. Kopec (CRW) 5:06.68, 10. Herny (CRW) 5:20.30, 15. Dugan Trenary (LM) 5:38.73; 200 free relay -- 1. Cedar Falls (Abbas, Burks, Langner, JoSund) 1:28.15, 2. Hempstead (Loeffelholz, Fuchs, Temperley, Fuerste) 1:29.10, 3. Dubuque Senior (Duster, Bailey, Huff, Forsyth) 1:30.41, 6. Washington (Green, Allison, Kopec, M.Barnes) 1:32.08, 7. Linn-Mar (Greve, Bloom, Raiche, Beard) 1:33.63, 8. Jefferson (Anderson, Inghram, Wilke, Kleinheinz) 1:35.76, 9. Kennedy (Heisler, Richardson, Moore, Holmes) 1:36.16; 100 back -- 1. Abbas (CF) 51.56, 2. Ford (CRW) 54.85, 3. Yao (ICW) 55.43, 5. Kehoe (CRW) 58.64, 7. Richardson (CRK) 59.74, 8. L.Barnes (CRW) 1:00.28, 12. Alec Belin (LM) 1:02.12, 16. Christian McKee (CRK) 1:04.57; 100 breast -- 1. (tie) Ty Bailey (DS) 1:02.87, Burks (CF) 1:02.87, 3. Jake Sund (CF) 1:04.82, 4. Greve (LM) 1:05.15, 6. Nick Durin (CRW) 1:05.80, 7. Kopec (CRW) 1:07.07, 11. Trent Greif (CRW) 1:10.00, 16. Green (CRK) 1:14.94; 400 free relay -- 1. Cedar Falls (Abbas, Stern, Baker, JoSund) 3:15.14, 2. Iowa City High (McMillin, Davis, Herting, McAllister) 3:16.92, 3. Hempstead (Loeffelholz, Fuchs, Fuerste, Temperley) 3:18.21, 5. Washington (M.Barnes, Hughes, B.Kopec, Ford) 3:23.68, 6. Jefferson (Anderson, Inghram, Wilke, Kleinheinz) 3:30.24, 9. Kennedy (Heisler, Richardson, Moore, Batterson) 3:41.64, 11. Linn-Mar (Burley, Bunting, Mason, Peters) 4:07.03.