All-Area Boys’ Swimmer of the Year: Records, championship highlight amazing year for Glendale’s Julian

As he stood on the deck of the Riverside City College pool, in some ways Glendale High sophomore Trenton Julian had no peers.

Sure, the Pacific League dual champion was facing a vaunted lineup at the CIF Southern Section Division II 100-yard butterfly championship race on May 16.

After all, Julian entered the day seeded sixth in the event and trailed his friend and Rose Bowl Aquatics Center teammate Javier Lopez of San Marino High.

On the other hand, Julian was in a place few people in the history of Glendale High had ever been.

No Nitro had hauled in a division championship since Richard Nixon was president, with the most recent contender, current UC Santa Barbara junior Mickey Mowry, taking silver in the same event with a mark of 49.70 seconds, the school’s record set in 2012.

Not only did Julian snap a 44-year drought in winning a division championship in Riverside, but the youngster also set three schools records in what was an unbelievable year.

For those efforts and more, Julian was voted the 2015 All-Area Boys’ Swimmer of the Year by the sportswriters of the Glendale News-Press, Burbank Leader and La Cañada Valley Sun.

Perhaps his success, though, shouldn’t have come as a surprise.

“When Trenton came through the doors at Glendale, I think we all thought, here comes a-once-in-a-generation talent,” longtime Glendale athletic director Pat Lancaster said. “You look at his family and you knew he’s going to be special.”

Julian’s bloodline matches that of any thoroughbred racing at Santa Anita on a Saturday afternoon.

The 15-year-old is the son of former U.S. gold medalist Kristine Quance and of Jeff Julian, who swam at the Olympics trials in 2000 and is the head coach at Rose Bowl Aquatics in Pasadena.

“When you have parents like mine, the expectations are always high,” Trenton Julian said. “That doesn’t change what I expect of myself, though. I went into that event looking to have my best race and put up my best time.”

Trenton Julian entered with a seeded time of 50.83 seconds and then placed sixth in a time of 50.67 in the event’s preliminary run, which took place the day prior.

The leader heading into Saturday morning was Lopez, who posted a blistering time of 49.29.

“There’s a lot of pressure out there and it’s kind of hard because if you have a bad day this one meet determines what you did all season,” Lopez said. “If you have a bad meet or a bad swim, you get that feeling that you’ve wasted an entire season.

“It’s nerve-wracking, but it’s also super exciting because you’ve put in the hard work and now this is your chance to show what you’ve done and what you can accomplish.”

For Julian, the sophomore started his Saturday morning etching his name into campus lore.

Julian finished third in the 200-yard individual medley competition, blasting his prelims time of 1: 52.44 seconds with a third-place mark of 1:50.64.

The time was good enough to earn All-American status and distance the youngster from the school’s previous record of 1:54.5, set by Mark Chatfield in 1971.

“Mark Chatfield is a name in swimming,” Lancaster said. “When Chatfield set that school record, that was the fastest time in the nation. Chatfield was an Olympian and here you have Trenton beating that record easily.”

Chatfield was a Pan-American Games champion and took fourth in the 100-meter breaststroke at the 1972 Olympics in Munich.

“When you grow up in a swimming family, you know names and you know times,” Julian said. “It was special to break the school record, but my goal wasn’t to chase down records, but to do my best.”

The school record was the second taken by Julian, who previously and casually had no challengers in winning the 500-yard freestyle in 4:45 at the Glendale-Hoover crosstown rivalry meet on April 22. He later improved that record to 4:36.57.

While Julian took ownership of Chatfield’s record, the latter was the fourth and last swimmer in Glendale High history to have won a championship back in 1971.

Yet, a title wasn’t exactly on Julian’s mind heading into the 100-yard butterfly.

“Right before the race he came over and said, ‘Let’s go one-two.’ I was like, ‘Let’s do it,’” Lopez said. “I think he expected to go two and I would be first, but that’s not how it worked out.”

Lopez was just a bit off on that Saturday, while Julian countered with his best race of the season.

At the first turn, Julian found himself neck-and-neck with Lopez and Redlands East Valley’s Fernando Duenas.

“When you’re swimming, you can’t look to see where you’re at,” Julian said. “I knew I was really close, but it’s always hard to know.”

Julian pulled away late from his two top competitors in setting a new school record of 49.39, while earning All-American status again and claiming the program’s first title in 44 years.

“My family was there and I had some friends there, too, including my Rose Bowl teammates,” Julian said. “It was a real special moment. I felt good before the race and during, but you don’t know how well you’ll do until it’s over.”

One of the first people to give Julian a congratulatory hug was Lopez, who completed the one-two prediction by placing second in 49.85.

“Once we hit, he was first and I got second and I couldn’t have been more excited for him or prouder of him,” Lopez said. “Sure, he comes from an amazing family, but he trains super hard and I couldn’t have been more prouder of him to get that win.”

With three school records and a CIF title under her belt, Julian has already enjoyed an amazing high school career two years short of its conclusion.

“We wish we can clone him,” Lancaster said. “He’s definitely phenomenal and he’s lifted the spirits of people on campus. A lot of kids talk about him and they’re going to continue to talk about him for a long time.”