CdM’s Maggie Schalow earns pair of second-place finishes at CIF Division 1 swim finals
Corona del Mar High junior Maggie Schalow helped the Sea Kings win the girls’ swimming CIF Southern Section Division 2 title last year.
This year, the Sea Kings got bumped up a division, which made the competition even tougher.
Schalow didn’t mind one bit. She likes the big stage.
“Obviously, winning is great, winning is always the goal,” she said. “We were D2 last year, but I would rather swim in D1 against the fastest and the best people that I know than swim in D2 and win everything.”
The University of Virginia commit shined again against the fastest swimmers in Southern California in Friday at the Division 1 finals at Marguerite Aquatics Center.
She earned a pair of runner-up finishes, highlighting local finishers at the meet, which produced one local individual champion — Fountain Valley freshman Kaitlyn Nguyen in the girls’ 100-yard breaststroke.
Schalow finished second to Santa Margarita senior Justina Kozan in both the 200 freestyle and 100 butterfly. She went out faster than usual in the 200 free and touched second in 1:47.41, which Kozan placing first in a swift 1:45.09. Schalow’s time was just three-hundredths off her school-record time from the Division 1 preliminaries on Wednesday.
“I think in the future, if I go out at the exact same time with a little more training and endurance, I’ll be able to come back a 54 [in the second half of the race] and go 1:45,” Schalow said. “That’s the goal for next year.”
She was even more excited about touching in a lifetime-best 52.90 seconds in the butterfly, less than three-tenths behind Kozan (52.65).
Schalow also helped the CdM girls’ 200 medley relay team place fifth in a season-best 1:47.34, along with Milan Bever, Joyce Chang and Jillian Schlom. The CdM 400 free relay of Schalow, Nikki Lahey, Alex Milisavljevic and Schlom was fourth in 3:28.31.
The CdM girls finished sixth in the Division 1 team standings.
The other local swimmer in two Division 1 championship finals was Nguyen, who became the area’s only individual champion after she won the girls’ 100 breaststroke in 1:03.19.
“It feels really good,” Nguyen said. “I feel like that was what I was anticipating the whole entire meet, and I finally did it. The time wasn’t great, but oh well ... It was very rewarding. Honestly, I just wanted to get first. My whole team was like, ‘Are you going to get first?’ and I was like, ‘I hope so.’ When I actually did it, it felt really good.”
Nguyen also dropped more than a second from prelims to finish fourth in the 200 individual medley (2:04.32).
Huntington Beach junior Dylan Crane, the lone local Division 1 boy to make an individual championship final, placed sixth in the 50 free in a season-best 20.79. Coach Ryan Camps said he was happy to see the improvement from Crane, who dropped more than a second from his time to start this season.
Oilers junior Grace Brehm placed eighth in the girls’ 100 breaststroke in 1:05.74.
Sage Hill School junior Ryan Chang advanced to two championship finals in Division 2, which was held simultaneously with Division 1 on Friday. Chang touched fourth in the boys’ 100 butterfly in 50.90, and eighth in the 100 backstroke in 53.40.
“I tried to get prepared mentally, but I think there was only six or seven minutes between the [200 free relay] and the backstroke,” Chang said. “I did really well on the 50 [in the relay]. That was a personal-best by a lot, but then the 100 back I was off my best time by a little. I could feel it on the last 50, I was dying a little bit, and it got really tough on the last 25.”
The Lightning’s 200 free relay team of Adam Yang, Kyle Wong, Noah Joshi and Chang placed seventh in 1:28.17.
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