Ballard to Showcase Versatility in Pool : Swimming: Birmingham junior to swim 50- and 500-yard freestyle events in City finals today.

In each of the last two City Section championships, Birmingham High’s Gretchen Ballard has demonstrated that she is one of the most versatile swimmers around.

Her freshman season, Ballard won the 50- and 100-yard freestyle sprints. Last season, she followed with victories in the 200 and 500 freestyle, the two longest races. She set section records in all but the 500.

This year, she’ll how how versatile she can be in one day.

Today in the City Section swimming finals at Belmont Plaza in Long Beach, Ballard will swim the 50 and 500 freestyle, one of the more unusual combinations Birmingham Coach Nick Rodionoff has seen.

“I don’t remember anybody swimming those two events together before,” said Rodionoff, who has coached the Braves since 1964. “But we haven’t had too many swimmers with the ability of Gretchen, either.”

Usually the City finals have been the culmination of Ballard’s spring season, but four days after the finals, she will join Buena High standouts Nicole Beck and Rebecca Gilman in France to compete with a U.S. Junior National Select Team in an international meet. The meet will be Ballard’s first chance at experience abroad.

“The City is probably not as big a deal this year because of the trip coming up,” Ballard said. “But I’m still going to try and be ready to get two more titles.”

Although Ballard didn’t shave for the preliminaries, she still posted the fastest time in the 50 and 500. She will also swim the leadoff leg of the 400 freestyle relay in an attempt to beat her 1993 time in the 100.

The Birmingham boys’ team is attempting to win back the overall team title it lost to Venice last year. Chris Wilson, Freed Elcott, Abraham Gogus and Shea Tomsin will try to break the school record in the 200 freestyle relay, a mark that has stood since 1965.

Elcott (100 breaststroke) and Wilson (50 freestyle, 100 butterfly) have the best chances to win individual races.

Other boys with top times in last week’s prelims include: Aaron Robinson of El Camino Real (200 freestyle); Mitchell Hester of Cleveland (50 freestyle); Alex Kim of Granada Hills (100 backstroke) and Erik Kim of Granada Hills (100 breaststroke).

The Granada Hills girls’ team has the best chance to unseat perennial champion Palisades if several strong relay teams come through.

The 400 freestyle relay team of Erin Shaw, Julie Quance, Stephanie Shapiro and Natalie Shapiro and the 200 medley relay (Rebecca Wareham, Stephanie Shapiro, Shaw, Natalie Shapiro) had the fastest times in the prelims and the 200 freestyle relay team placed third. “We really might have a chance to break through this time,” Quance said.

Palisades has won 13 of the last 14 City Section girls’ titles. Granada Hills finished second the past two years.

El Camino Real’s Rebekah Davis will be seeded first in the 200 freestyle. Natalie Shapiro (100 freestyle) and Stephanie Shapiro (200 individual medley) also had top times in the preliminaries.