IRVINE – It was easy to spot the Aquazot swimmers Thursday night as they navigated the pool deck at the Speedo Junior National Championships.
Decked out in bright, blue “Junior National Team” T-shirts, the Irvine-based club drew upon its Orange County-high 23 individual qualifiers for the meet to line the sides of the pool and cheer for teammates.
Day 2: Results from Junior Nationals
The Aquazots also clustered on the medal podium.
Corey Okubo and Thomas Smith finished fifth and seventh, respectively, in the men’s 200-meter backstroke while Alex Peterson grabbed fifth in the men’s 400 individual medley to highlight Southern California’s efforts on Day 2 of the 18-and-under meet at the Woollett Aquatics Center.
“I think that’s what I love most about this team – it’s not just one person and it’s not just one person carrying everybody,” Peterson said. “Everybody kind of works together and we all have this great sense of teamwork. You credit (coach) Brian Pajer with that a lot … but at the same time … we all just get involved in the spirit.”
Okubo and Smith challenged the hallowed 2-minute barrier but came up short in a close race won by Patrick Conaton of New York’s Badger Swim Club in 1minute, 59.67seconds. Patrick Mulcare of Oregon’s Tualatin Hills (1:59.78) and Michael Taylor of Georgia’s Dynamo (1:59.90) also broke 2minutes.
Okubo, a University High graduate bound for Princeton, touched in 2:01.91 while Smith, an Edison senior-to-be, finished in 2:02.80, off his personal-best 2:02.16 from prelims.
Aquazot’s Daniel Tran, a senior-to-be at University, won the consolation B final in a lifetime-best 2:02.04 for ninth place.
Okubo, Smith and Tran are chasing times that only two Southern California boys in the 17-18 age-group have achieved. Backstroke king Aaron Peirsol (Irvine Novaquatics, 1:55.15) and Tyler Clary (FAST, 1:58.78) are the only SoCal boys to have touched in 2:00 or faster.
The Aquazot trio will get another chance next week at senior nationals.
“We’d like to be in at least that 2:00-range, if not 1:59,” Pajer said of the group. “I think they’ve all trained at a level where that is possible.”
Peterson, a Laguna Hills graduate bound for Penn, clocked a 4:24.33 to finish about six seconds behind winner Curtis Ogren of Palo Alto Stanford (4:18.02).
In other results, Redlands Swim Team’s Sonia Wang placed seventh in the women’s 400 IM (4:50.73), and Carmel Swim Club of Indiana captured the women’s 400 free relay in a meet-record 3:44.88. It was also a national age-group record in the 15-18 division.
Santa Clarita-based Canyons placed eighth (3:29.77) in the men’s 400 free relay.
Contact the writer: dalbano@ocregister.com
