Getting CdM up to speed

Steve Virgen

In his first season as coach of the Corona del Mar High boys swim

team, Mike Evans has definitely had a challenge in front of him.

The Sea Kings are winless in the Pacific Coast League at 0-4, and

Evans has been a bit disappointed with the team’s focus. The Corona

del Mar swimmers, the majority of whom compete in water polo in the

fall, have been using the swim season to prepare for their specialty

sport.

Evans has been fine with that, but has been hoping the swimmers

improve their times and think less about water polo. Improving speed

is what Evans wants the most for this season and for the program’s

future.

“A lot of our swimmers are water polo players who stay in shape in

swimming,” Evans said. “We help motivate them for water polo and we

help motivate them to improve on their speed. A lot of them have been

swimming since the age-group division so they are good swimmers.”

While the Sea Kings do have talent in junior Bryan Buhagiar, the

PCL has just had more. University, the three-time defending league

champion, is on pace to earn its fourth straight league title.

The Sea Kings have also lost to Northwood. Buhagiar did win two

events, taking first in the 100-yard freestyle (50.60 seconds) and

the 100 backstroke (57.80) in CdM’s 102-68 loss Wednesday.

“[Buhagiar] has the best time in all of our events,” Evans said.

“Backstroke is probably his favorite, but he’s good at all of the

strokes.”

Senior Travis Hersh, sophomore Blake Schoenberg and senior Thomas

Pearson have also been performing well for the Sea Kings, Evans said.

Evans said he has been supporting the great success of the CdM

girls team.

The PCL preliminaries are scheduled Wednesday at 2 p.m. at Laguna

Beach High. League finals are May 7 at 1 p.m.