Just Add Water

Goran Bistric and Sean Gucciardi have always easily navigated the 100 yards required in their specialty races, which are over in less than a minute.

But the quick bursts of speed so necessary for success in the backstroke and butterfly didn’t help the Newhall Hart teammates traverse the bumpy road they took to the Southern Section Division I swimming championships, which take place Friday at Belmont Plaza in Long Beach.

“We grew up together and we’ve been swimming together [on club teams] for years,� Gucciardi said. “We both need to make a statement that we’re here. We’re down to business now, and we’re going to go out with a bang.�

Bistric, a backstroker, has come back from a lingering injury; Gucciardi, who swims the butterfly, has returned from academic ineligibility. Each is expected to be among the top eight finishers in his event.

Determination and patience helped Bistric rebound from a serious ankle injury and push through rehabilitation which has helped, but not completely healed, his condition.

“I pretty much doubted a lot of things,� said Bistric, a senior who will attend Georgetown. “I didn’t even think this high school season was going to be possible. I was pretty depressed.�

Gucciardi used similar resolve, tenacity and newfound maturity to return to swimming, and a regular high school too, after spending his junior year at a continuation school.

“I think if somebody saw me a year or two ago, and they saw me now, they really would think I’m somebody different,� Gucciardi said. “I’m kind of happy with myself.�

Swimming played a key role in the recoveries of both.

Gucciardi won the 100 butterfly in 52.21 seconds at the Foothill League finals last Thursday, setting a meet record, though his season-best time is 51.73. Bistric set a league record by going 52.75 in the backstroke during league preliminaries on May 3. Their efforts at the Santa Clarita Aquatics Complex helped Hart win its ninth consecutive league title.

Gucciardi, 17, started high school at Canyon Country Canyon, but a fight with a fellow student near the end of his sophomore year and numerous attendance and academic problems landed him at Santa Clarita Bowman Continuation School.

“I was not really listening, or I’d leave school, or be sleeping in class,� Gucciardi said. “Then I’d get home, I’d see somebody, and we’d just go out, and I wouldn’t do my homework. It wasn’t that I couldn’t do it. I just didn’t want to do it.�

He thrived at Bowman, which offered a less-regimented system -- students call teachers by their first names and rework anything that earns a grade of C or lower -- that allowed him to work at his own pace and make up three semesters of work in little more than one.

“I loved it,� Gucciardi said. “Honestly, if they had swimming there, I think I would’ve stayed. I felt like I grew up about five years there.�

Enrolling at Hart this fall, Gucciardi’s commitment to the Indians has been unwavering. Coach Steve Neale describes him as a willing contributor, an enthusiastic cheerleader, and an eager-to-please teacher’s aide when he works in his coach’s history class.

“I think he’s found a home at Hart,� Neale said.

As one of Hart’s top swimmers the last four years, Bistric has long been a team leader in the pool. This season, he has learned to carry the mantle out of the water as well, serving as a team captain.

Quiet and private, Bistric surprised everyone, including himself, by giving a motivational speech to the girls’ swim team before the league championships.

“I just told them to go out there and swim with heart,� he said. “It was all on the spot, but once you start talking, it brings it out of you.�

Bistric believes he has yet to swim his best this season.

An injury that he thought was a sprain suffered when he rolled his right ankle in a pick-up basketball game before his junior season never fully healed, and it flared up again in January, affecting his starts and strokes.

“I couldn’t even walk,� Bistric said.

Diagnosed with one torn ligament and two strained ones, he underwent surgery on Feb. 7 and was out for a month. Adding to his concerns, Bistric’s mother, Rada, underwent spinal surgery to correct a disk problem in her neck a month after his own operation.

“It wasn’t a good start to the senior year,� Bistric said. “I heard a lot of people talking, saying, ‘Goran’s not coming back.’ I just wanted to be able to swim. I wanted to be able to finish out the season.�

Bistric and Gucciardi could finish with a flourish.

Each was seeded second -- Bistric in the backstroke and Gucciardi in the fly -- going into Wednesday’s Division I preliminaries, and both will join breaststroker Jeff Linn and freestyler Andrew Evans on Hart’s top-seeded 200 medley relay team.

“We’re not just going to show up,� Gucciardi said. “We want to be contenders.�