High School Swimming: Popp showing finishing kick for CdM
The 200-yard individual medley is a difficult event in high school swimming because it requires proficiency in all four strokes, the butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke and freestyle.
Becoming the school record holder in that event at a school known for aquatics like Corona del Mar High? Now that requires a special swimmer.
Senior Meagan Popp fits that bill for the Sea Kings. And she’s not quite done yet.
When Popp steps behind the blocks Saturday night at Riverside City College for the CIF Southern Section Division 1 finals, she’ll do so in her final high school meet. The Daily Pilot Athlete of the Week is headed to Harvard, where she’ll swim for the Crimson.
The swimmer Harvard is getting is a fierce competitor who seemingly never loses her cool, a young woman who is well aware of the time standards she’s trying to hit but always friendly out of the water.
“When I get too tense, I lose the freedom in my stroke and my stroke becomes short,” Popp said. “Talking to my teammates really helps me calm down before my races, which is why I’m lucky I have teammates like Eva [Merrell], Nicole [Lin], Kaybree [Albright] and other water polo players too. They’re so easy to talk to, and they calm me down before my races. I mean, I could be talking a minute before my race starts. But about five, 10 seconds before the whistle goes off, that’s when I really focus on my race.”
So Popp, who transferred to CdM from the Chicago suburb of St. Charles, Ill. before her junior year, is humble. But she’s also a great swimmer for Coach Doug Volding’s Sea Kings, one of the best the program’s ever had. She was co-Girls’ Swimmer of the Meet at league finals both of her years at CdM, this year sharing it with Merrell and Woodbridge senior Daniela Georges.
Popp will leave CdM with at least three individual records, and one relay record. She set the 200 and 500 freestyle records last year, and got the individual medley record last week at Pacific Coast League finals by swimming a 2:01.31, breaking CdM assistant coach Stephanie Gabert’s previous mark of 2:03.44 set in 2006.
“I was like, OK, it’s almost the 10-year mark for my IM [record],” Gabert said. “When is someone at CdM going to break my record? Then she comes along and does IM this year and it’s cool, you know? We actually have someone who went faster than me. I think that’s pretty cool.”
Popp, who also has teamed with Merrell, Lin and senior Sami Pratt to set the medley relay record, certainly has nothing against Gabert. But she’ll be gunning for another of her records on Saturday night.
Gabert’s 2005 time of 1:02.71 in the breaststroke is now by far the oldest CdM girls’ record on the books. Popp narrowly missed it at Division 1 preliminaries, swimming a 1:02.72 to qualify third. She’ll also be in the championship final of the IM, where Popp qualified fourth by lowering her league finals mark to a 2:00.47.
Popp, Merrell, Lin and Pratt qualified second in the medley relay (school record 1:45.00), while Popp, Merrell, Lin and Albright qualified third in the 400 free relay (3:28.46).
Popp, who swims for Irvine Novaquatics, is one of three top club swimmers for the CdM girls along with Lin and Merrell, a sophomore and freshman respectively who both swim for AquaZots.
“We’ve grown really close together these past couple dual meets and at league [finals],” Popp said. “I think they’re going to do a great job leading the team when I go to college. This team’s going to continue to thrive with Nicole and Eva.”
It has certainly thrived with Popp, who plans to major in environmental science at Harvard. She said the CIF finals meet will be good preparation for college swimming, which she’s excited about.
Popp’s father, Craig, swam at El Toro High and Cal. He still lives back in Illinois, running his orthopedic surgeon practice. But he’s in town this weekend to watch his only child compete at the highest level.
Craig followed a similar path to Meagan, swimming the distance freestyle events at CIF as a junior before focusing on the IM and breaststroke as a senior.
“I didn’t know that until I picked my events, and then he told me,” said Meagan Popp, who lives with her mother Linda. “It’s kind of interesting … Last year I just didn’t feel confident enough to swim my best events. I felt better if I was just swimming freestyle. But now, with all of the training I’ve done, I feel pretty confident about swimming the breaststroke and the 200 IM this year.”
She put in the work, keeping CdM as a powerhouse that finished fifth in Division 1 as a team last year and looks for another top-five finish on Saturday night.
“It’s great,” said Gabert, who won Division 2 titles with CdM as a freshman in 2004 and a junior in 2006. “That just makes our team so much better overall. It shows not just to Southern California, but as a nation, that this school, this area, we’ve got hot swimmers here. It’s pretty cool. It’s a good feeling, for sure.”
Popp would agree with that sentiment, and her school records are impressive. But…
“Records are meant to be broken,” Popp said. “Now I’ve set a higher standard for other people to work toward. I think the faster the records get, the more drive there is to break them. They want their name on a prestigious record board like CdM.”
Popp certainly earned her place there.
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Meagan Popp
Born: March 18, 1997
Hometown: St. Charles, Ill.
Height: 5-foot-7
Sport: Swimming
Year: Senior
Coach: Doug Volding
Favorite food: Sushi
Favorite movie: “Sweet Home Alabama”
Favorite athletic moment: Getting her most recent Olympic trial cut in the 200 breaststroke at a meet in Texas.
Week in review: Popp set the school record in the 200-yard IM and also won the breaststroke at Pacific Coast League finals May 8 at Irvine’s Woollett Aquatics Center. She also teamed with Nicole Lin, Eva Merrell and Sami Pratt to set the school record in the 200 medley relay. Popp was the co-Girls’ Swimmer of the Meet along with Merrell and Woodbridge’s Daniela Georges.
