Photo Courtesy of: Lady Iron Swimming & Diving Instagram account // @normalcommunityswim

Community won Intercity for the second straight season. Five first-place finishes would help Community on the way to the Intercity title.

Community’s girls swimming and diving team are Intercity champions for the second straight season in a meet decided by the competition’s final race.

After 11 events, Community held a 3-point advantage over Normal West heading into the 400-yard freestyle relay.

While West’s A relay team won the race (3:53.13), scoring 40 points, Community won the meet — finishing 2nd and 5th for a combined 62 points and 541 overall.

West finished Intercity with 516 points, 25 points behind Community, for 2nd place. U-High took 3rd with 415 points.

The Iron supplemented five first-place finishes — three individual and two relay wins — with depth, as 17 Iron swimmers scored points in the six-team competition.

Community’s 200-yard medley team of Meghan Kilcoin, Kenna Malinowski, Avani Rai and Piper Lowder (1:55.72) won the meet’s opening race.

West took 3rd and 4th in the event, but an 8th-place finish from Community’s team of Ava Johnson, Alexis Plassman, Lyndsey Hackman and Iris Diaz left the two teams tied after the first event.

West’s had a 10-point advantage over the Iron after three events, highlighted with 3rd place finishes in the 200- freestyle and 200- individual medley.

A 1-2 finish in the 50-yard freestyle by Community’s Kenna Malinowski (23.60) and Piper Lowder (26.25) erased that deficit.

While West touched the wall 3rd and 5th, Piper Wood’s 7th place finish gave Community a 2-point lead in the meet.

After the diving competition, Community extended that lead to 3.

West’s Marnie Howard placed 1st in diving, with Community’s Zoe Aprahamian taking 3rd. Aubrie White and Emma Carroll took 6th and 7th for Community, ahead of West’s 8th and 9th place finishers.

Community would extend their lead to 13 points over West when Kenna Malinowski took 1st (52.16) in the 100- freestyle. Nina Osborne finished 3rd (58.83) and Iris Diaz took 9th (1:02.60).

Community would finish 1-3 again in 500- free. Ava Johnson recorded a first-place time of 5:34.82, and Lyndsey Hackman came in at 5:48.48.

West took 2nd in the race, but Rose Harshbarger of Community finished 6th to help the Iron extend their lead to 22 points.

Community’s 200-yard freestyle team of Piper Lowder, Meghan Kilcoin, Nina Osborne and Kenna Malinowski (1:42.31) took first, finishing five seconds ahead of West.

The 6th place finish in the race of Community’s B-relay team (Emlily Broadfield, Torrie Killian, Alexis Plassman and Pyper Wood) gave Community their largest point advantage of the day — leading West 416 to 390 after nine events.

West would begin to chip away at Community’s 26-point lead in the 100- backstroke.

Meghan Kilcoin took 2nd in the race (1:06.21), but West’s finishes of 4,5 and 8th left the Wildcats trailing by 19 after 10 events.

West’s Claire Malinowski finished 1st in the 100- breaststroke, with teammates taking 4th and 8th.

Alexis Plassman, Iris Diaz and Emily Hall finished 3,9 and 12 for Community — leaving the Iron ahead of West 479 to 476 heading into the final race.

Community’s A 400-yard freestyle relay of Piper Lowder, Lyndsey Hackman, Nina Osborne and Meghan Kilcoin took 2nd with a time of 3:53.97, .84 behind West. 

The Iron’s B relay of Avani Rai, Torrie Killian, Pyper Wood and Iris Diaz clocked in at 4:13.65 for a 5th place finish — and back-to-back Intercity titles. 

Bloomington High School took 4th in the meet, ahead of Central Catholic and Cornerstone Christian.