Daily Pilot Athlete of the Week: Sailors’ Hemmens finally loves to swim

Newport Harbor High senior Reece Hemmens was raised by an Olympian.

His mom, DeAnne, competed in women’s kayaking, doubles and fours, in the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. His father Patrick, from South Africa, also had an athletic background.

Two years ago, Reece Hemmens also had the chance to be coached by another Olympian when the “backstroke king,” Aaron Peirsol, became the boys’ swimming head coach at Newport Harbor.

Peirsol coached Reece’s older brother Hayden, who was then a senior at Harbor. But Reece, a sophomore who had been a club swimmer for YMCA Orange County since he was 8 years old, was nowhere to be found.

Actually, you could find him somewhere. He had quit the sport and was participating in offseason football training.

“When Aaron Peirsol was the coach, I quit swimming,” Reece Hemmens said this week with a grin, aware of how ridiculous it sounds. “I hated it up until the end of freshman year. At the beginning of sophomore year, I was just like, ‘I’m done with this.’ And I quit.”

Reece didn’t really have a background in football, unless playing catch with friends counts. He grew tired of the offseason training for that sport as well.

“I didn’t even get a position,” he said. “I joined, and then I think I quit three months later. It was just lifting, and then every once in a while we’d go out to the field and throw the ball, and I’d catch it every five minutes. I was like, ‘I’m not doing this next year, no way.’”

Spend some time with Reece Hemmens, and you notice that he moves to his own drum. After he graduates from Newport Harbor, he said he might enroll at Orange Coast College next year, where Hayden is redshirting. Or, Reece might take a year off from school and go backpacking.

At this point of the high school swim season, though, there are no days off. Yes, Reece is back in swimming as a two-year varsity starter. He’s trying to help the Sailors earn their first Sunset League title since 2010.

The Daily Pilot Athlete of the Week has been dominant in the sprint freestyle events for Sailors Coach Ross Sinclair, whose team went a perfect 5-0 in league dual meets. A nonleague win last week was also significant, as Newport Harbor beat rival Corona del Mar, 94-76, for its first Battle of the Bay win in boys’ swimming in a decade.

Reece Hemmens is always the one smiling and having a good time, which makes him a great teammate for the Sailors. The team has a good mix of club swimmers and water polo players, especially on the freestyle relays where Hemmens and fellow club swimmer Nick Halphide team with water polo players Max Sandberg, Jason Grew and Charlie Covina.

“He genuinely enjoys being in the water,” Sinclair said of Hemmens. “Last year, he was starting to come into his own, then toward the end of the season he realized how talented he is.

“He’s always messing around with me, messing around with the coaching staff in a good way. But this year, I noticed he’s also ultra-competitive. He doesn’t want to lose, and he trains hard. He’s got a knack for being competitive, which I love. That’s what you want, guys that are ultra-competitive and are having fun and enjoying it at the same time.”

Hemmens finished fifth at league finals last year in the 100 free (47.71 seconds) and seventh in the 50 free (21.71). He was part of the 400 free relay group that went on to place sixth at the CIF State meet in that event, along with graduate Sawyer Farmer, Halphide and Grew.

“I started getting faster,” Hemmens said. “Last year at league, I was like, ‘If I train hard enough, I can maybe get a record at Harbor.’ Since that point, I’ve been liking swimming a lot.”

The 50 free school record is a 20.80 and the 100 record is a 45.80, both of which were set by Farmer last year. Hemmens is still a bit off those times, though he has already bettered his marks from last year in this week’s league dual meet against Huntington Beach.

The focus for Hemmens is really on the team more than himself.

“I would rather win league and then do bad at CIF [individually], because these guys, that would get them pumped up,” he said. “We’d have a league title, and that would be great.I would definitely do it for the team.

“We’re all just waiting to see what happens. I think we can [win league], but we know it’s going to be close for sure.”

Sunset League preliminaries and finals are on next Wednesday and Friday, respectively, at Golden West College.

It wasn’t always this way, but now Hemmens is fully committed.

“I think the sky’s the limit with Reece,” Sinclair said. “He’s just like, ‘Yeah, I’m going to compete, make the most of it’ … [but] it doesn’t consume his life. You don’t ever see a second of burnout in him, which I think helps him come out here and compete. He’s starting to realize that he’s talented, but it’s not the end of the world if he stops swimming. Yeah, he’s a funky kid.”

Reece Hemmens

Born: July 16, 1999

Hometown: Newport Beach

Height: 6-foot-1

Weight: 165 pounds

Sport: Swimming

Year: Senior

Coach: Ross Sinclair

Favorite food: Bacon

Favorite movie: “Mile… Mile & a Half”

Favorite athletic moment: Coming back in the 400 freestyle relay to help Newport Harbor beat Los Alamitos, 87-83, in a Sunset League meet March 28.

Week in review: Hemmens won the 50-yard and 100 freestyle events and was also on the winning 200 free relay team as Newport Harbor beat rival CdM, 94-76, in the Battle of the Bay meet April 20.

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Twitter: @mjszabo