Brendan Whitman hit his stride at the right time en route to becoming the Sun Journal All-Region Boys Swimmer of the Year.

He finished second in the 100-yard freestyle at the KVAC championships as everything that needed to go right did go right for the Edward Little senior.

“Going into it, I wasn’t really thinking about it, I just wanted to swim my race, I wasn’t going to focus around me going into it,” Whitman said. “It was probably the best race of my season — my strokes, my turns, it just felt very nice.”

Whitman’s time for that race was 51.54 seconds. He also placed fifth in the 50-yard freestyle event at the KVAC meet.

At the Class A state championships he finished 10th place in the 100 freestyle (52.08 seconds) and 11th in the 50 freestyle (23.83 seconds).

Whitman said his goal was to finish in the top eight in the 100 freestyle at the state championship meet. While he was disappointed in falling just of that, he didn’t want to let one race to define his entire season.

Overall, from the beginning of the season, he dropped about a second from his from his time in the 100 freestyle and eight-tenths of a second in the 50 freestyle.

He was also won the Chris Campbell Award, which goes to the most outstanding male swimmer at the Lewiston-Edward Little meet. During that meet he won the 50 (23.77) and 100 (52.97) freestyles and helped lead Edward Little to victory in the 400-yard freestyle relay.

It was the second year in a row he captured the Chris Campbell Award.

“Honestly, I wasn’t expecting to get it,” Whitman said. “I was expecting it to go to someone else, to give them a shot (at winning the award), but I was very surprised, happy and honored to be getting that award.”

Through his four years on the swim team, Whitman said he was proud to make new friends and improve on his times from his freshman season to his senior season. He will be attending the University of Maine where he plans to try to walk on to the swim team.

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