Frank flies in PAL finals

"Coming into this year, I wanted to swim well," Frank said. "When I realized I had a chance to win often, I wanted to win as much as possible."

Frank was the odds-on favorite to win both races. He qualified first in both events - swimming a 22.36 in the 50 and posting a 48.80 in the 100. His time in the 50 was nearly a second faster than Menlo's David Bar Gadda and his time in the 100 was more than two seconds faster than Menlo's Derick Chen.

But in sprints, one small slip up can be the difference between winning and second place.

Frank admitted he was nervous before each race but that nervousness helped him to swim faster than he did all season. After a mediocre start and turn in the 50, he pulled away in the middle of the final lap to post a 21.99, the third-best time in CCS this year. In the 100, he again used his superior kick down the stretch to win going away, posting a mark of 47.64, beating everyone by more than two seconds and setting a new Aragon record in the process. That mark is the second-fastest in CCS.

"It's hard to take off a 10th of a second let alone a [half second]," Frank said.

Besides winning two PAL championships, Frank set two personal bests.

"Good for him. He hasn't been a double winner before," said Aragon coach Bob Greene. "In sprint races, that's crazy good.

"I think what it does for him is give him confidence for CCS. All I wanted for him was to have confidence for CCS."

Frank's time gives him the second-fastest time in CCS this season.

Frank, a standout for the Dons' water polo team as well, admits he prefers playing water polo to just swimming, but realized swimming helped his polo game.

"It gets really tiring just swimming. Now, I have to swim to help with water polo," Frank said. "When I first started water polo, I was faster (than the others). That gave me reason to keep swimming."

Despite going undefeated in the two races, Frank realizes he is not the best on sheer talent alone. He admits his starts and his turns aren't the best but he makes up for it with his speed in the middle of the pool.

"I have good acceleration," Frank said.

Greene believes Frank may be a little hard on himself and thinks the best is still to come.

"In the 50, his start was pretty darn good," Greene said. "[The 100] wasn't a perfect race - great start, good turns. He just swam a fabulous time and it wasn't his best."

Greene is a believer in the adage that if a swimmer meets certain times, the wins will come. Frank's mark in the 100 was his goal time set at the beginning of the season. Greene realized if Frank hit the mark, winning would be the by-product.

"If you go out to put up good times, the winning will come," Greene said. "As a coach, I'll give up all first places for good times."

Frank plans on walking on to the University of California, Irvine water polo team this fall but Greene believes Frank could become an outstanding college swimmer.

"It'll be amazing to see what he does in college. He'll be better," Greene said. "He'll get bigger, better, stronger."

Regardless of how well Frank does in the CCS meet or if he even swims competitively in college, he'll always have his undefeated senior season to look back on.

"Undefeated means a lot," Frank said. "Later on, that will be something to tell my kids."