Edman goes the distance

“He’s a quiet leader on the team,” Smith said. “He leads by example. When something happens, he’s not the one to speak up, to get the team excited. But if [his teammates] strike up a conversation with him, he’ll speak his mind. He’s a great kid. He’s one of those guys who will always pitch in, to help set up or take down [equipment] any time I need an extra body.”

After swimming for the Mustangs his freshman year, Edman said he took some advice from Mesa boys’ athletic director Tim Postiff, the former boys’ swim coach. Edman swam club for a while at Golden West.

“That’s where I think I got most of my basic training, as far as stroke work,” Edman said. “Ms. Smith has just been perfecting it, making it better, helping me get the stroke down.”

It’s a relatively painless process, Smith said.

“Every set I give him, he swims it exactly the way I told him to swim it,” she said. “He doesn’t ease up on a couple of the repeats, to be able to finish the set. It’s an extremely hard workout. There will be days he comes to practice where he doesn’t feel good at all, and he still swims and you couldn’t even tell he was sick.”

That kind of dedication has the Mustangs looking to repeat as Orange Coast League champions. Last year, they were never really challenged in league.

Edman wants to continue to swim and play water polo in college, he said. In water polo, the driver was a first-team All-Orange Coast League selection this past fall.

But Edman isn’t one of those water polo players who sees swimming as just a necessary evil.

“I think they go hand in hand,” he said. “You need polo for swim, and you need swim for polo. I try hard in both. You need the polo training to stay in shape for swim, and during the swim season you get your stroke down, which makes you faster for polo. That’s how I look at it.

“To each his own. I enjoy swimming; I think it’s fun.”

BOYS

CORONA DEL MAR

Coach:Barry O’Dea (third year)

2007 record: 4-1, 4-0 in Pacific Coast League (league champions); eighth at CIF Division I championships.

Key returners: Yutaro Yamashita (Sr., 200 free, fly); Chris Cottrell (Sr., 200 IM, back); Michael Liao (So., 100 breast, IM); Evan Zepfel (Sr., distance free).