Diamond in the Desert
| Wednesday, Jun 24 2009 09:50 PM
Last Updated Wednesday, Jun 24 2009 09:58 PM
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Jenn Ireland / The Californian Mary Hanson, All-Area girls swimmer of the year.
It took just 53.48 seconds to change Mary Hanson's swimming career. Already the owner of a few good times in the freestyle and backstroke, Hanson was somewhat unknown in California swimming circles because she hails from Ridgecrest, in the middle of the desert and out of the way of just about anything that swims.
"We have," said Mary's dad and coach, Grant Hanson, "just one pool in town that stays open year-round."
But when Hanson, a junior at Immanuel Christian who is The Californian's Girls Swimmer of the Year, came to the CIF Southern Section Masters meet in Long Beach on May 19, everything changed.
Hanson said her 100-yard backstroke race felt like a good swim, felt like the "the water was just flowing past me. I felt stronger. I felt unstoppable."
Sometimes, though, Hanson said, you have to check the clock before you're sure it was a good swim. When the 53.48 popped up, she knew. It was a personal record by about a second and a half, and, as the Hansons later discovered, it's the second-fastest high school time in the nation this year.
"It didn't really sink in for a while," Hanson said. "I looked at it and I was like, 'Wow,' just kind of shocked. A few weeks later, I was like, 'Whoa. I didn't think it was that good.'"
The Californian also is honoring juniors Jordan Reed from Liberty and Kristyn Kirschenmann from Frontier as its co-Divers of the Year. Reed and Kirschenmann staged a back-and-forth battle for area supremacy all year; Reed won the area meet with a score of 352.70, and Kirschenmann turned around for the higher finish in the Central Section. She was third at 340.25; Reed was fifth.
Hanson, a member of the Bakersfield Swim Club, will now swim the backstroke at the U.S. World Championship Trials next month in Indianapolis. This trip won't likely result in a medal or in world qualification, but it will provide her with valuable experience in case she returns in the coming years.
"I don't expect her to (make the) final," Grant Hanson said. "Just go and experience it, and hopefully some time in the future, she'll have that behind her."
Hanson also finished second at the Southern Section meet in the 100 freestyle in 50.39 seconds -- an automatic All-American time, but that's a feat that doesn't draw any attention at a meet where several are posted in almost every event.
It was the backstroke that raised so many eyebrows. Hanson had been clocked in the 100 back at 1:10 as a 10-year-old, a good time for that age, but she fell a bit behind her age group over the next four years, only reaching 1:00.
"Now in the last two years, she's dropped six and a half or seven seconds, which is pretty mind-boggling," Grant Hanson said.
The coach's mindset might have something to do with that rapid improvement. Most coaches favor a program in which they push their swimmers to some 12,000 yards a day in practice.
"But I've seen too many kids burn out or get injured and ruin their careers doing that stuff," Grant Hanson said. "We focus on technical detail, with less yardage but more intensity. Maybe it doesn't work for everybody, but it works for us."
One reason might be that Mary Hanson is so comfortable in the water. Her mother says she's the only Hanson kid (they have four) who never complained about swimming lessons or baths or water.
"I just always loved the feeling (of) relaxing in the water," Mary Hanson said. "When you're swimming, it feels like you forget about everything and all the bad stuff. You can just enjoy the water. It's like another world."
And now Mary Hanson is in position to to stay in the spotlight of that world. Her two older sisters swim at Cal Baptist University in Riverside, and though Mary said she'd be happy to follow them, she'll have plenty of other options, too.
"With girls, they (typically) get faster and faster to a certain age, and then a lot of them don't improve that much," Grant Hanson said. "So far, Mary has just continued to improve."
