Junior Olympic Swimming : After Down Year, Nadadores Rebound for Combined Team Title

Scenes from Saturday’s Junior Olympic Championships at Mission Viejo, or what might better be called: “You Might As Well Night:”

Tyler Mayfield, a Las Vegas swimmer, couldn’t play contact sports while growing up so he took up swimming. He set a junior national record in the 100-meter breaststroke.

Kim Martin, the Fullerton Aquactic Swim Team member who was filled with self-doubt after failing to qualify for senior nationals in the 800-meters, thought she might as well give the 1,500 meters a try. She cruised past that event’s qualifying mark with more than five seconds to spare.

Whole teams were even affected at the west Junior Olympic Longcourse Championships at Mission Viejo’s International Sports Complex Saturday.

Conejo Simi, once two teams which later merged, won the women’s team championship with 317 points. Irvine’s Novaquatics, winners of last year’s men’s title, racked up 269 points to win it again. And Mission Viejo’s Nadadores, out of the running last year, put up 409 points to return to the top of the combined results.

The biggest of these splashes was made by 15-year-old Mayfield, who last year was ranked first in the 13-14 age group in the men’s 100-meter breaststroke. When he entered the preliminaries of the event Saturday morning, he expected to do well.

But when he swam the event in 1 minute 5.63 seconds, he was surprised. Later in the evening, he swam the final in 1:05.50 seconds, breaking the national junior record by eight hundreths of a second. He said the performances were some two seconds better than he had even swum.

“Yeah, I wasn’t expecting to go that fast in the morning,” he said. “I was hoping for tonight, and that happened.”

Mayfield said he was chasing the record from the moment he dove into the pool. Wes Sinclair, his teammate, said he was looking at Mayfiled the entire race and could tell. Sinclair finished second by almost two full seconds.

“He’s been splitting his time 75% swimming and 25% basketball,” said Las Vegas Coach Scott Stride. “I think a swim like this might change his mind a little bit. I don’t think there are that many 15-year-olds qualifying for the Olympic Trials. He just gave us the best.”

Had Mayfield not broken his leg in the second grade, he says he probably would never have taken up swimming in the first place.

“I had a cyst in my leg from that time until the seventh grade and the doctor wouldn’t let me play contact sports,” he said. “I decide to start swimming. After five years, I was getting into it so I decided to stay with it.”

Later Saturday, Mayfield swam the anchor leg for the Las Vegas Gold in the 400-meter medley relay. The Gold took first place in 4:01.96.

Another swimmer who benefitted from perserverance was Martin. She didn’t make the cut for senior nationals during the 800-meter freestyle, the first event swum Tuesday, the first day of the meet. On the meet’s last day, though, she easily qualified for senior nationals in the 1,500-meter freestyle. Her time of 17:06.27 seconds easily made the qualifying mark and was almost five seconds faster than runner-up Kara Freshour, who clocked 17:11.02.

“I was hoping I could go that fast but I had my doubts,” said Martin, a 15-year old at Kennedy High School.