Having a championship team of 10 swimmers with only two upperclassmen didn’t stop the Malibu High School (MHS) swim teams from scoring top 10 finishes at CIF finals last Friday, May 13, at Riverside Aquatic Center.
Several swimmers from both the boys and girls teams finished the season with best times, and two school records were rewritten at the meet.
Following the opening relays, sophomore Kate Pietrzyk kicked off the individual events for the Sharks with a three-second drop in the 200-yard freestyle, finishing 10th overall with a time of 2:03.73.
“The 200 was a blast,” Pietrzyk said. “I had tons of fun and loved my last 25 [yards] when I looked over and saw my whole girls team and both coaches standing up screaming at me to kick it.”
Junior Everest Brady continued the trend in the boys 200, finishing sixth overall with a time of 1:49.26. The swim allowed him to once again better his time after recently falling below the 1:50 mark. Freshman Kennan Hotchkiss finished close behind, touching the wall ninth in a time of 1:50.51.
Hotchkiss then continued his CIF debut with a monumental performance in his main event — the 500-yard freestyle — taking third overall with a time of 4:48.67.
“I’m happy with my 500 swim,” Hotchkiss said. “It felt good to go under 5:50 [for the first time.”
Sophomore Annie Armitage also posted a third-place finish on the girls side of the 500 with a time of 5:26.71.
Junior Ben Tran broke the first school record of the night with a time of 1:02.83 in the 100-yard breaststroke, scoring him a fifth-place finish. Earlier in the night, he finished eighth in the 100-yard freestyle with a time of 48.99.
The Sharks went out with a bang in the last event of the night — the 400-yard freestyle relay — when the girls team of Pietrzyk, Armitage, Amy Perna and Alex Mora took down a second school record and clocked a fourth-place finish with a time of 3:48.43.
“Definitely the most intense pump-up moment was before [the relay],” Pietrzyk said. “We got so pumped up with music that by the time we had to head over, we were practically running to the blocks with excitement.”
The Sharks ended the meet with a seventh-place girls team finish and a ninth-place finish on the boys’ side — an outcome head coach Mike Mulligan said far exceeded his expectation for top-15 finishes.
“The kids held their taper from league all the way through CIF,” he said. “Our relays really came together and the kids motivated each other. There’s just such a great atmosphere at Riverside Aquatics Center, and seeing other good swimmers from all over fired them up to swim well.”
The Sharks saw a major shift in age this season after graduating four seniors who were key contributors to the boys team’s second-place CIF finish last year, but Mulligan said he is pleased with how this year’s new freshmen have stepped into leadership roles.
“When you had a team like we had last year, you don’t expect outstanding results, and we had several freshmen come in who changed the whole dynamic of both the girls and boys teams,” he explained. “Our expectations weren’t big at the beginning of the season, but as we watched them mature and improve throughout the season, our expectations grew and they amazed us. All the freshmen stepped up so big for us.”
The team’s freshmen contributed so much, in fact, that five of them — Hotchkiss, Julian Mora, Alex Mora, Perna and Adina Berg — made up half of the Sharks’ entire squad at CIF finals.
The majority of the Sharks’ CIF finalists train year-round with the Malibu Seawolves swim team, but Mulligan said the athletes who don’t swim club also made a substantial contribution.
“All our non-club swimmers stepped up huge,” Mulligan said. “They’re so competitive and athletic that they really strive for that competition and love that challenge.”
Even despite a CIF finish that far exceeded expectations, Mulligan said that this year is just the beginning of a promising future for the young team.
“With everybody returning, our goals are to increase their speed,” he said. “Our goal [for the future] is to finish even higher than we did this year.”
