IOWA CITY — The Mercer Park Aquatic Center falls quiet. Unsettlingly quiet. Every cough, every camera shutter, seems louder than it should. The announcer’s voice breaks the noise.

“Next up on the board, Irelynd Hagarty.”

The junior diver climbs the three, sandpaper-textured steps, silver bracelet glinting under the fluorescent lights. With her right foot, she adjusts the fulcrum for more spring. From one meter above the water, now facing backward at the edge of the board, she takes a deep breath. And jumps. The clean slice of water shatters the silence. A roar from the crowd follows. Irelynd Hagarty climbs out grinning, wrapped in cheers. Before she throws her towel on, she turns to the crowd, and smiles. Her dad, Ryan, pumps his fist while filming. Her mom, Sheila, stands on the bleachers, cheering her on.

Hagarty’s swimsuit has a City High logo. Her father’s t-shirt has Solon’s.

This isn’t that unusual. Since at least 2021, Solon swimmers and divers have routinely joined City High. Former Solon swimmer Grace Hoeper, whose name is still on City High’s record board, now competes as a freshman at Indiana University.

“Her class and the year before her really started recruiting from Solon,” City High head coach Mandi Kowal said. “That started it pretty big. There were more this year than I thought there would be.”

On Tuesday, Sept. 16, three of Solon’s athletes – Hagarty, Maddie Elkins, and Avery Feuerbach – helped City High hold their own against Cedar Rapids Washington, winning 116-70. Elkins, a junior, swam four times, contributing to a first place team finish in the 200-yard freestyle relay. Feuerbach, a freshman, helped out on the junior varsity side during a first place team finish in the 400-yard freestyle relay.

Two other Solon athletes, Ella Pressler and Paige Anderson, didn’t compete, but have also been key additions to City High’s roster this fall. Together, the group makes Solon one of the program’s most consistent feeder schools.

“They’re all a really important part of the program,” Kowal said. “I want them to get better and have fun doing it.”

For Hagarty, who only started diving in January after six years of gymnastics, the learning process isn’t seamless. But the switch was all about finding another spark.

“I missed having a sport I was passionate about,” she said. “I did it on a whim, and I loved it.”

To Ryan Morrow, her diving coach at City High, the partnership is essential to keeping the sport alive.

“Diving is a small, small sport in Iowa,” he said. “If each school had their own team, it might only be two or three divers per team.”

Morrow also coaches at other surrounding schools, including Liberty and West High. He’s all over the place. It’s something the divers admire about him.

“You have to make him sound really cool,” Hagarty chimed in.

What the pair both agreed was cool was Hagarty’s third dive. While not her best score of the night, Hagarty stuck her first backward one-and-a-half somersault tuck of the year, a 2.0 difficulty dive. Without the connection between Solon and City High, that moment might have been limited to club diving. Technical, competitive, and a little impersonal. This, she said, is just fun.

After the meet ends, the team cleans up boxes of pop chips and mid-race sandwiches. They push through the natatorium doors, the fresh air conditioning pouring over them after hours of pool humidity. The girls crack jokes with each other and get a final swig of water from the fountain on the wall. For some of them, home is much farther away than others. On paper, they’re from different schools.

On the pool deck, as Kowal says, “you wouldn’t even know.”