Marcussen Invite approaching, Tigers hope to come out on top

The annual Marcussen Invitational swim meet is coming up fast on Oct. 2 at Holmes Junior High, and the Tigers are preparing for it.

Kyrie Dailey said, “Yeah, we are doing lots of hard workouts. We are tired, but we are a lot stronger.” Even coach Dick Marcussen said, “We have been working hard right now. They’re really tired, and they have to learn to overcome that for the mental aspect then the physical.”

But in the end, Marcussen is sure that’s what’s needed to be competitive at the invitational. “We are just targeting on certain aspects of everyone’s strokes right now to make them refined. They say the last 15 yards, that’s where you win it or lose it. You have to be prepared. That’s why they swim all these dual meets and invitationals to try to prepare them for the big meets coming up.”

And so far all the training has paid off. Marcussen said, “We are undefeated in dual meets, swimming pretty good.”

Sizing up how this will translate into the big home invitational, he said, “It all just depends on Wakashaw. They’re the ones we really have to contend with. There will be a couple more teams there that will give us a good run. Wakashaw beat us last year, so I assume they still have a good team. They’re coming back, so it’s always a good one between us and them.”

So naturally the team is fired up. Kelsey Abbas said, “I’m excited to see how we do as a team,” and Kyrie Dailey said, “It is our invitational, and we have a lot of fun with it.”

But there have been some setbacks. The coach said, “We’ve had mono; we’ve have strep throat. We’ve had someone sick almost every week. Hopefully they get rid of all that and get ready to go. If the kids are going to get sick or anything, you hope it’s going to be earlier in the season and back by the end.”

As the team moves beyond the Marcussen Invite and into the rest of the season, Marcussen said, “Our biggest competitors this year are Iowa City, West Des Moines Valley and, I think Kennedy might be the next best one. Ames is probably by far the best team in the state. They’re just way better than anyone right now. I wish I could say we could challenge them because in the past we have beaten them, but this might be their year.”

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