Daily Journal Girls’ Swimmer of the Year: Woodside’s Audrey Chung

“I had a (college) recruiting trip … and I ended up picking up a suitcase incorrectly,” said Chung, who recently wrapped up her junior year. “It hurt in the moment, but I didn’t notice it until I went back to practice on Monday. It was a slight shoulder injury and I took the whole week off.”

That was two weeks before the PAL championships. In the week leading up to it, she decided it would be best if she sat out the PAL finals.

“I was really bummed out. I was looking forward to swimming PALs,” Chung said. “I did go (to the meet) to cheer on the team. I was already frustrated, but being there and cheering on the team was fun.”

Having swam a Central Coast Section qualifying time earlier in the season, Chung had already qualified for CCS. But as she was warming up for her first CCS swim, she felt a twinge in her shoulder again. After a couple of ibuprofen tablets, she was ready to go.

And go she did. Chung ended up winning both the 50 and 100 free at CCS, earning the title of “fastest swimmer in CCS” and cementing her as the San Mateo Daily Journal Girls’ Swimmer of the Year.

Despite knowing Chung was an elite swimmer, Woodside head coach Stephanie Couch would not have guessed her star junior would win a pair of CCS titles after missing two weeks of training.

“Did I know she would take first in CCS? No, I thought that was … unbelievable,” Couch said. “She is extremely hard working. … She is no slacker.”

Her 50-yard time of 23.40 in the CCS final is a new PAL record, eclipsing the mark of 23.54 set by Menlo-Atherton’s Brooke Stenstrom in 2013.

“That’s almost a second faster than she did at PALs the year before,” Couch said.

“After the prelims, [my coaches] came over and congratulated me on my swim,” Chung said. “But I told them I felt I could go faster, especially in the 100. I still felt like I had more gas in the tank.”

Chung came back two races later to capture the 100 free in a time of 50.52 to give her the double.

“I was just hoping to get to see how fast I could swim. I felt a lot less pressure because I didn’t set super high expectations prior to the injury,” Chung said. “I had been training really well and was looking forward to racing CCS.”

By winning the sprint double, Chung became the 25th swimmer to accomplish the feat since the inception of CCS girls’ swimming in 1974. She also becomes the second Woodside swimmer to win both races, joining Joanna Jensen, who won back-to-back titles in those events in 1986 and ’87.

And Chung wasn’t done yet. Winning those CCS titles qualified her for the state meet. In the 50 prelims, she bettered her CCS time by one-hundredth of a second, swimming a 23.39 to make the “A” final qualifying sixth — one of the top-eight fastest swimmers in the state.

In the finals, however, she was a bit worn out and settled for sixth place with a time of 23.53.

It was a similar result in the 100. Her qualifying time of 50.89 secured the eighth spot in the “A” final and that’s where she finished in the final, eighth, with a time of 51.01.

Winning the sprint titles in not easy. Because the races are so fast, the 50 especially, one wrong move, one small mistake can be the difference between winning and not.

The difference can be, “a touch (of the wall),” Couch said.

Chung, however, did not start out the season with a goal of winning CCS. She said she most often just focuses on time, but this season, she changed up her mindset.

“This year, I haven’t been focusing on time, but making sure I was just going as fast as possible,” Chung said.

While not satisfied with her times at state, she was OK with the results because she gave it all she had.

“I guess I was happy, but I didn’t swim that great in the 100 free,” Chung said. “I knew the final swims weren’t what I wanted them to be, but I was happy, overall, with the season.”