Johnson shares PCC women's swimmer of the year honors

Madalyn Johnson followed her Fallbrook High School swim career with two seasons on the Palomar College team. This year she shared Pacific Coast Conference women’s swimmer of the year honors.

Johnson, who graduated from Fallbrook High School in 2017, shared the conference swimmer of the year award with second-year Mesa College swimmer Julie Parsons, who is a 2017 Otay Ranch High School graduate.

“It was a lot of work, a lot of practices, a lot of early mornings,” Johnson said.

Those hours were summarized in 25 minutes and 14 seconds over three races during the PCC championship meet, April 18-20, at Southwestern College. Johnson won the 200-yard freestyle and 500-yard freestyle races and finished second in the 1,650-yard freestyle.

Johnson needed 1 minute 56.13 seconds to win the 200-yard freestyle event.

“That’s not my best event. I just kind of swam it,” she said.

She swam it well enough to defeat the other competitors in that race.

“It was a good race. There were some very fast girls there,” Johnson said.

The winning time Johnson had in the 500-yard freestyle was 5:12.90.

“I swam my best race. I was actually surprised how much time I dropped,” she said.

Johnson dropped approximately 15 seconds off her previous best time in that event.

Palomar also took second place in the 200-yard freestyle. The Comets had the first three finishers in the 500-yard freestyle.

Despite those finishes Palomar did not win the league championship; the Comets placed second among the conference’s five teams.

“We did pretty good. We didn’t have a very big team this year,” Johnson said.

The Comets’ swimmers consisted of nine men and nine women. Two of the men, Matthew Kuhn and Bryce Sammons, are 2018 Fallbrook High School graduates. Kuhn was second in the 200-yard backstroke, third in the 100-yard backstroke and fourth in the 500-yard freestyle, and he swam the backstroke on Palomar’s 400-yard medley relay team which finished second and was also on the Comets’ 800-yard freestyle relay team, which took second place. Sammons, who is primarily a water polo player rather than a swimmer, did not advance past the preliminaries.

Allyson Hansen from Mesa College won the 1,650-yard race in a time of 17:51.

“She’s very good,” Johnson said.

Johnson’s second-place time at the league championship meet was 18:05.

“I was happy with my time,” she said.

The longest high school race is 500 yards. Johnson swam the 1,650-yard freestyle race at other meets during the season.

“It was long. It was painful. I like the 1,650 a lot. It’s definitely a very challenging event,” she said.

Johnson dropped nearly a minute off her previous best time in the 1,650-yard event.

The performances at the conference championship meet qualified Johnson for the state meet May 2-4 in Cupertino. Johnson placed fifth in the 1,650-yard freestyle, sixth in the 200-yard freestyle, and sixth in the 500-yard freestyle.

“It was pretty exciting,” Johnson said of the state meet. “It was a lot of very fast kids there.”

The Palomar swimmers tapered for the conference meet but could not match that training technique to prepare for the state meet.

“I didn’t drop any more time,” Johnson said of her state meet races. “It wasn’t my fastest swim, but I was pretty happy with it.”

Johnson was also on the Palomar College swim team in 2018. During last year’s conference championship meet she was second in the 500-yard freestyle, third in the 100-yard backstroke and third in the 200-yard backstroke.

Last year she swam the 500-yard freestyle at the state meet and placed 16th.

“It’s a different environment ,: Johnson said of the state meet.

Johnson swam in four Valley League meets for Fallbrook High School. Her only league championships were in 2016, when the then-junior won the 50-yard freestyle final and was also on the winning 200-yard freestyle relay team. Johnson also played water polo for the Warriors.