Miriam Sheehan Breaks Puerto Rican Record at Iowa Long Course Championships

2022 Iowa Long Course Championships

• July 21-24, 2022
• University of Iowa Aquatic Center, Iowa City, Iowa
• Long Course Meters (50 meters)
• Final Results (PDF)
• Team Scores by Age Group (PDF)
• High Point Awards (PDF)

11 LSC Records were broken last weekend at the 2022 Iowa Long Course Championships.

The Iowa LSC includes most of the state of Iowa, though the less-populated westernmost counties of the state compete in the Midwestern Swimming LSC instead.

Among the weekend’s record-breakers was Tokyo 2020 Olympian Miriam Sheehan, who won the 100 free in 55.95. That breaks the Iowa 17-18 LSC Record for the 17-year old.

Sheehan grew up training in the Phoenix area, where she broke a number of US National Age Group Records. In 2018, when she was 13, she began representing Puerto Rico internationally, and is currently the owner of 11 Puerto Rican Records. She now trains with the Dubuque Area Swimmin’ Hurricanes in Iowa.

Her 100 free was short of adding a 12th record to her list: Vanessa Garcia still holds that one with a 55.00 from 2010.

Iowa records weren’t the only ones she broke in the meet, though: Sheehan also won the 100 fly in 59.94. That is her first time under 1 minute in that event and the time breaks her own Puerto Rican Record of 1:00.01 set at the 2019 World Junior Championships. Sheehan turns 18 this year, and thus is too old to represent Puerto Rican at the 2022 World Junior Championships next month.

Sheehan came close to a few other Puerto Rican records as well. She swam a best time of 2:04.95 in the 200 free (six-tenths from the Puerto Rican Record). She also won the 100 back (1:03.54) and 50 free (25.96) individually, which made her the meet’s second-highest scorer in the senior age group (100 points).

The only swimmer to score more was Des Moines’ Annie Honkamp (101 points), who didn’t win any individual events but recorded seven finishes in the top 6 places, including a wide range of events from the 100 breast all the way up to the 1500 free.

The boys’ high scoring told a similar story. 16-year old Joe Polyak scored the most points (98) with seven A-final swims and no wins, but his teammate Isaac Weigel (90 points) grabbed the most individual gold medals with three.

Weigel won the 200 IM (2:08.71), 200 free (1:53.35), and 100 free (51.58) at the meet. Weigel just completed his first season of college swimming at Dartmouth, where he finished as high as 6th place at the Ivy League Championships in the 200 yard free.

Other Highlights in the Senior Age Group:

• Asher Havenhill swam a relay leadoff 100 backstroke in 57.88, hitting his first Summer Junior Nationals cut in long course (he’s already qualified in the 100 and 200 backstroke in yards). Havenhill is a rising high school junior committed to swim at Arizona State in fall 2023. In total, he hit best times in 7 events he swam at this meet.
• Scarlet Martin of the Iowa Flyers, in her last LSC Championship before beginning at the the University of Iowa, didn’t win any races, but did hit four personal bests. That includes a 26.75 in the 50 free and 57.84 in the 100 free. Her future Florida team really needs to build out its sprint corps, so her improvements will be tantalizing for head coach Anthony Nesty.
• 15-year old Hayden Hakes swam 59.34 in the 100 backstroke, which puts him in the top 25 American 15-year olds this year in that event.

Age Group Highlights

There were a number of multi-winners across the age groups at this meet, but maybe the most impressive among those was 14-year old Hudson Huberg of the Iowa Flyers Swim Club. By FINA points, he had the 9 best swims in the boys’ 13-14 age group at the meet, picking up wins in the 50 free (23.93), 100 free (53.59), 200 free (1:59.74), and 400 free (4:20.32). He also added personal bests in the 100 fly (1:00.90) and 200 IM (2:17.03).

His 50 free time was a new Iowa LSC Record, knocking .11 seconds off the old record held by Diggory Dillingham. Dillingham, who now trains in Oregon, is currently the fastest 50 yard freestyler in the high school class of 2023. At 14, that swim qualifies Huberg for Summer Juniors. His best time coming into the meet was 24.63 from a Sectionals meet in March.

Huberg is now the #4 ranked 13-14 boy in the age group in the US in 2022, and #16-ranked boy in the age group all-time.

Heberg began swimming in the small western-Iowa town of Spencer with the local YMCA. Spencer is the biggest town in a county of only 16,000 people. Marie Koenigsfeld, a coordinator at the LSC, says that the family contacted them when he was 10 or 11 to get involved with the USA Swimming scene, and the family eventually moved to Cedar Rapids because of his parents’ work – where Heberg has flourished at IFLY.

The biggest winner of the day was another IFLY swimmer, 11-year old Caite Schaffel. The 11-year old, in spite of being on the younger end of the 11-12 age group, went a perfect 9-for-9 in individual events at the meet, in addition to three relay wins on a busy weekend.

She won the 200 free, 50 breast, 100 breast, 200 breast, 100 fly, 200 fly, 200 IM, and 400 IM at the meet in a herculean effort.

She was the highest scorer across all age groups at the meet.

Other Age Group Highlights:

• Maelyn Woltz of Black Hawk Swim Team very-nearly matched Schaffel’s feat. She won 8 races at the meet, and also grabbed a runner-up finish in the 50 fly. Woltz won races across all five disciplines (including IM0, and every distance from 50 meters to 400 meters.