Demers’ Domination Was Nearly Complete

RANCHO SANTA MARGARITA —  Philippe Demers is as close as you can get to a one-man swim team.

Demers, The Times Orange County male swimmer of the year, was largely responsible for Santa Margarita’s second-place finish at Southern Section Division I finals last month at Belmont Plaza Pool.

“I don’t want to take away from the great swims of Philippe’s teammates like Frank Uxa, Matt Shipstead, Matt Martin and the others, but let’s be honest, if he wasn’t swimming for us, I certainly wouldn’t be the coach of the year, and I know we wouldn’t have finished second,” Santa Margarita Coach Rick Rowland said.

Demers doesn’t want to take all the credit, however.

“I don’t know, I guess my times were OK,” Demers said. “But there were a lot of guys responsible for how well we did [this season]. I’m just trying to swim my best and hopefully help my team.”

Demers, who will be swimming for Mark Schubert at USC this fall, had most of the top times in the county for most of the season. His winning times at section finals in the 200-yard freestyle and the 100 butterfly and his part on his school’s relay teams were the reason why he won swimmer of the meet honors at the section finals for the second consecutive year.

At the Southern Section finals last month, Demers broke his Division I record in the 100 fly, winning in 48.25 seconds. His winning time in the 200 free was 1:38.04, one of the fastest times in the nation this year.

“It would have been nice to get that national record. But I guess it wasn’t meant to happen,” Demers said.

The national record in the fly, 47.60, is held by Anthony Nesty of Jacksonville, Fla., who swam it in 1986.

Although his anchor time in the 200 freestyle relay at the section finals was not official, Demers’ split of 20.32 for 50 yards was a county best.

Demers’ domination of the county was nearly complete. Until the section finals, he had the fastest time in every individual event except the breaststroke and 500 freestyle.

“The breaststroke is my weakest,” Demers said. “But I’ve been taking lessons from [Dave] Salo, my club coach, and my times have been getting better.”

So much better that when Demers swam the breaststroke in one of the last meets of the season, his time dropped enough that he nearly cracked the county’s top five times.

“Philippe is one of those athletes that a coach gets once in a lifetime,” Rowland said. “He’s such a phenomenal swimmer, that it seemed that anything he tries is within his reach.”