Spencer, Ia (Northwest Iowa Now) – With the 2024-2025 Iowa High School Sports season winding down, we continue our series of the best teams from the past sports year in the KICD 9-County Area.

There may be only one Swim Team in the KICD 9-County area, but the Spencer Girls had a year for the record books in 2024.

Lilly Gross was a key returner for the Tigers. A talented 2023 Sophomore class gained experience, and an infusion of talent from the Freshman class led to a perfect storm.

The Tigers broke into the season with a 3rd place finish at the Riverhawk Girls Swimming Invitational out of 8 teams. Freshman Halle Sears collected two golds on the day with Gross picking up a Gold as well.

At a highly competitive Wahawk Invite in Waterloo, Spencer was the loan Western Iowa representative, and took 2nd, only 15 points behind Waterloo in 1st. Sears won both the 100y Freestyle and 200y Individual Medley for Spencer that day, Gross was 2nd in the 100y Breaststroke, and Kashmyr Menough took 3rd in the 100y Butterfly.

Facing some familiar teams in Fort Dodge for the Gary Winkler Invitational, Spencer placed 2nd out of 5 before rattling off a couple of Dual wins against Algona and Mason City.

Sioux City Metro continued to be a roadblock for the Tigers. The Metros finished in front of the Tigers at the Mickey Olson Invitational, beating them in a double dual with Algona, taking 1st at the LC Invite, and then capping off the year by beating Spencer on their Senior Night.

For the postseason, Spencer was sent to the IGHSAU State Qualifying Meet in Mason City alongside Dowling Catholic of West Des Moines, Mason City, Algona, Waterloo, Hoover of Des Moines, Ankeny, and Valley of West Des Moines.

Halle Sears took another couple of Golds at the qualifier in the 100y Butterfly and the 200y Individual Medley Lilly Gross was 3rd with Ella Kasperbauer snagging an at large bid to the State Meet in the 100y Breaststroke.

Swimming in Iowa is a one division sport, so Spencer had to both compete with the biggest schools in the State and the ones that were even smaller than Spencer. The Tigers broke in several qualifiers, putting them in a good position to pile up some points. The Top 5 was the usual suspects with Dowling Catholic taking 1st at 260, Northwest of Waukee 2nd at 243, Cedar Falls 3rd at 220, Bettendorf 4th, and Ames 5th. Sioux City Metro was 6th with 127 points.

Halle Sears was 4th in the 100y Butterfly then finished 3rd in the 200y Individual Medley. Lilly Gross took 11th int he 100y Breaststroke, and the Spencer 200y Medley Relay was 11th.

Spencer would pile up 48 points to finish 16th out of 45 teams and were only a couple points away from overtaking 15th place Valley of West Des Moines.

The Future is very bright for a bunch of talented young Swimmers in Spencer, and the Tigers hope this is just the launching point.