In the zone

Mike Sciacca

Shawn Pfendler said he felt “in the zone” before the start of

Tuesday’s Pacific Coast League boys’ swimming preliminaries at Corona

del Mar High.

Actually, the Laguna Beach High sophomore went beyond that zone

and right in -- again -- the school record books.

Pfendler set a pair of new marks in two events and, in each

instance, eclipsed records he had already owned.

The 16-year-old came up with personal best and school records in

the 100-yard backstroke and 200-yard individual medley.

Pfendler went 58.75 seconds in the 100-back and 2:09.95 in the

200-IM.

His previous school records, set during his freshman year, were

59.26 and 2:10.61, respectively.

“When I got to the pool I knew there was a lot of high-level

competition swimmers there,” said the personable Pfendler. “The

high-level of competition was off the charts.

“But swimming seems like, a lot of times, a state of mind. I was

in the zone and once the competition started, I was more than ready.”

Pfendler’s first event was the 200 individual medley, and he was

competing against his friend and swim rival, junior Evan Pham of

University High.

Pfendler swam in lane No. 3, Pham in lane No. 4 and Pham’s

brother, Daniel, a senior, swam in lane 5.

“We knew it would be a great competition,” Pfendler said. “Evan

and I have become good friends away from the pool. We have this

friendly rivalry and that’s how we approach it when we compete

against each other.”

Pfendler led the pack after the event’s first 100 yards which

consisted of 50 yards of butterfly and backstroke each.

It was in the third lap -- the breaststroke -- where Evan Pham

caught and passed his friend.

Pfendler tried to catch Pham in the freestyle but ended up in

second place -- despite his school record.

“Evan’s one of the best breast-strokers in the state right now and

that’s where he got me,” Pfendler said. “I was really happy to get

the school record, and really happy for Evan.”

At today’s boys’ league final at Corona del Mar, Pfendler will

again compete in both races. In addition, he will swim a leg on

Laguna’s 200 medley relay team and 4 x 100 free relay team. Each

team, he said, will attempt to set school records and hit qualifying

marks for next week’s CIF meet.

“We’re really looking forward to going out there and giving it our

best,” Pfendler said of today’s meet. “It’s our last shot at

qualifying, so I know we’ll be ready to go.”

Twice this year Laguna’s 200 medley relay team has set new school

records.

The first record was set in an April 9 meet at Northwood behind

the team of Pfendler (backstroke), fellow sophomore Bret Burge

(breaststroke), senior Bryan Earley (butterfly) and junior Dustin

Caris (freestyle).

The foursome finished the event in 1:50.62.

In an April 18 meet against Villa Park, Pfendler, Earley and Caris

swam their usual specialties but junior Nolan Plant swam

breaststroke. The team broke the record set just nine days prior with

a time of 1:50.45.

To qualify for CIF tournament, the team must finish in a time of

1:49.00.

Laguna’s 4 x 100 free relay team consists of Caris, Earley, Nick

McConnell and Pfendler as anchor.

Caris and Earley also qualified in individual events at today’s

finals.

Earley qualified for today’s meet by finishing in second-place in

the 100-butterfly at Wednesday’s prelims.

Caris, meanwhile, came up with a personal best time of 23.1 in the

50-free to advance to the finals.

The junior says that the medley relay team is capable of hitting

the CIF qualifying time.

“It’s just a matter of us working on our starts, flip turns and

swimmer-to-swimmer transitions in practice this week,” Caris said.

“It felt good to set the school records -- I was a little surprised,

though, that we had set the record in the first place because we

haven’t won much in league.

“We’ve now set the school record twice, so that gives us

confidence heading into league finals.”