Left-right: Brayden Plourde, Keegan Kraft, Daxton Hughes

Norwalk swimmers Keegan Kraft, Brayden Plourde and Daxton Hughes will represent Des Moines Lincoln over the next two days at the Iowa Boys State Swimming and Diving Meet in Iowa City. The state meet is being held Friday and Saturday at the Campus Recreation and Wellness Center.

Seniors Kraft and Plourde, Hughes, a sophomore, and junior Blake Bennett qualified a combined five events for state at last Saturday’s District competition in Waukee. They notched a personal best in each event, including a school record time of 3:19.25 in the 400 freestyle relay. The same quartet qualified for state in the 200 freestyle relay. In addition, Kraft has qualified in the 200-yard individual medley and the 100 backstroke. Plourde will compete in the 100 freestyle after qualifying with the 19th-best time in the state.

Plourde tells KNIA Sports that making it to the state meet with his teammates is the result of years of dedication to the sport. “I think it was definitely a surreal moment,” he said. “None of us have ever been to State before, and we’ve just really been working for this throughout the entire season. It was definitely an awesome feeling, not just getting a school record and personal bests, but also qualifying for the state meet.”

The Norwalk swimmers added that their goals at the state meet include breaking the 200 freestyle relay school record and improving their record in the 400 freestyle relay. Plourde and Kraft have their eye on breaking some individual school records as well.

Today’s state meet competition begins at 5:00 p.m. with preliminary individual events. The top 16 times in each event will advance to Saturday’s finals. Competition begins at 12:30 p.m. on Saturday with finals in all events.