Caverly Saves Enough Juice for Record-Setting Finale

Kristen Caverly of the Irvine Aquazots was exhausted heading into her final event Sunday at the Speedo Grand Challenge at Heritage Park in Irvine.

But she had just enough gas left to pull off her most impressive performance of the weekend, setting a meet record in the 200-meter breaststroke.

It was the second time this month that Caverly, a junior at San Clemente High, broke one of Amanda Beard’s records. At the Southern Section Division I championships, Caverly broke Beard’s record in the 200 individual medley, and Sunday she topped Beard’s mark in the breaststroke by almost two seconds, winning in 2 minutes 31.76 seconds. Beard’s mark, set in 1995, was 2:33.03.

Even more impressive than Caverly’s performance was the fact that she did it in her 15th race of the three-day meet. Of the eight events she entered, Caverly finished in the top five in all but two. She finished second twice and third once.

“My coach wanted me to try three events a day to see how I could handle it,” said Caverly, 16. “I am definitely happy with how I did. It’s tough to swim that many events.”

Caverly credited her strength in the final swim to taking it easy in the preliminaries.

“I saw the other heats swimming and the times weren’t that fast,” she said. “So I decided to take it easy and save it up for the finals.”

In the men’s division, Chad Carvin of the Mission Viejo Nadadores won the 1,500 freestyle, his fifth victory in as many tries.

Carvin, 27, won the 1,500 in 15:43.05, more than 12 seconds ahead of second-place Ryan Lean of the Irvine Novaquatics. Lean, 17, swimming with an injured Achilles’ tendon, blew past Aram Kevorkian in the final 100 meters to touch in 15:55.42.

On the first two days, Carvin won the 200 and 400 individual medleys and the 200 and 400 freestyles, setting a meet record in the 200 individual medley in 2:07.36.

“I just needed to get in the pool and race,” Carvin said. “I really didn’t have any times or goals in mind, so I’m pretty happy with how I did.”

The middle-distance competition wasn’t as tough as it had been in previous years, Carvin said, but the Olympic silver medalist wasn’t complaining about the $1,250 prize money he earned.

“If we could just have these meets every weekend, I’d be set,” Carvin said.

The Novaquatics’ Aaron Peirsol won his first event of the weekend, taking the title in the 50 backstroke. Peirsol, a junior at Newport Harbor, trailed Nova teammate Michael Cavic heading into the final 25 meters, but Peirsol, who won an Olympic silver medal in the 200 backstroke, moved past Cavic for a victory in 26.66. Cavic, a junior at Tustin, touched in 27.27.

The Novaquatics won the team competition with 188 points, and the Aquazots were second with 41.5. The Nova men edged the Nadadores, 72-68, and the Nova women finished first with 46 points, followed by Texas with 38.