Columbus East’s Josh Pendleton competes in the 500-meter freestyle at Saturday’s Columbus North Sectional boys swimming and diving meet.
Nicholas Shaw | For the Republic
Columbus East sophomore Josh Pendleton had his best swimming meet of the season and career Saturday at the Columbus North Sectional.
Pendleton is in good position to swim in the Boys Swimming State Finals in two events, and that begins with the prelims on Friday.
Pendleton swam to sectional victories in the 500-yard freestyle (4 minutes, 37.13 seconds) and the 200 freestyle (1:43.05), which broke a school record set by Keaton Stevenson last year. He also swam a school record in the 100 freestyle (47.37) when he was the starting block for the 400 freestyle relay team, besting Kenny Crapse’s 2008 100 freestyle record of 47.63.
The state finals meet begins with the prelims at 6 p.m. Friday at the IU Natatorium in Indianapolis. The top-eight swimmers advance to the finals, with the next eight finishers (9-through-16) qualifying for the consolation finals, which will begin at 1 p.m. Saturday.
Pendleton has the experience swimming in the state finals meet. As a freshman last year, he finished ninth in the 500 freestyle and swam on the 18th-place 400 freestyle team.
“With already having been in the state before, it definitely calms the nerves because I’ve done it before, so that should help,” Pendleton said.
Columbus East’s Josh Pendleton is all smiles after winning the 500-meter freestyle at Saturday’s Columbus North Sectional.
Nicholas Shaw | For the Republic
Pendleton put himself in good position to make it to Saturday. He is seeded 15th in the 200 freestyle and seventh in the 500 freestyle. He swam the 500 freestyle in 4:34.07 in last year’s state meet, which would put him in the conversation for a top-five finish in the 500 based on the seed times of the other swimmers ahead of him.
“I just have to have a good race and racing the people in my heat and having my best swim on prelims. I can’t save it for the finals,” Pendleton added.
Pendleton has a coach on staff that has swam on the big stage before in East assistant coach Michael Brinegar. Brinegar won the 500 freestyle as a freshman at Columbus North in 2015 and swam in the 800- and 1500-meter freestyle events at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.
“He’s been doing really well. He’s a good job this year of progressing in practice. He’s doing better than he has last year, and we’ve seen that in all the meets he’s had,” Brinegar said. “He didn’t swim at the 200 free last year at sectional, but this was his fastest 200 free time, so we’re pretty excited about that. His 100 free was also good. He got up and broke our school record. He was two-tenths off in prelims and broke it in the finals. It’s been a fun year, and seeing Josh progress has been good.”
Pendleton likely would need to improve at least two seconds from his sectional time to have a chance to make the finals in the 200 freestyle.
“I definitely want to try to be top-eight in prelim for both of the swims and be as high as I can in the finals and do my very best to drop time,” Pendleton said.
