Lindsey Horejsi departed for Federal Way, Washington, as a state champion. She returned to Albert Lea as a national champion.

With a time of 1:00.24 in the finals of the 100-yard breaststroke as part of the Mantas Swim Club, Horejsi beat 118 opponents to earn a gold medal at the USA Junior National Championships on Dec. 13.

“I’d been working for it all year,” Horejsi said. “State was a good meet for me, and I was excited to show people what I could do.”

State being a good meet was an understatement. Horejsi won individual Class A state titles in the 100 breaststroke and the 200 individual medley, and earned a third title as a part of the 200 medley relay team with Albert Lea teammates Ahnika Jensen, Anna Andersen and Bailey Sandon.

Horejsi swam sub-minute times in the 100 breaststroke for the first time in Minnesota girls’ swimming history in prelims and finals with times of 59.61 and 59.56. Her nearest competitor in finals was 5.08 seconds behind.

At junior nationals, the competition was fierce. Horejsi posted a prelim time of 1:00.63, and Nikol Popov of Canyons Aquatic Club in Santa Clara, California, swam a personal best to finish 0.04 seconds later.

“You’re swimming against all of these people who are at your ability,” Horejsi said. “A few of my turns were long going into the wall so I didn’t come out of them very fast. Going into finals, I knew the things I had to do to fix that.”

Horejsi cut her time to 1:00.24 in finals to beat Popov, who took second in 1:00.86. The tight race didn’t bother Horejsi.

“I just try to swim my own race and do the best that I can,” she said. “I focus on my own lane and keep pushing myself.”

Mantas coach Alex Lindstrom congratulated Horejsi after the race.

“I just told her I was proud of her,” he said. “That was an awesome swim. The first step was winning nationals, and it was a success.”

The 100 breaststroke was one of four events Horejsi competed in. She took 33rd place out of 152 swimmers in the 50-yard freestyle with a time of 23.45 that would’ve won Minnesota’s Class A state title. She finished 14th out of 180 in the 200 individual medley with a time of 2:00.93, and she swam the 200 breaststroke.

In the 200 breaststroke, Horejsi was disqualified under strange circumstances.

“At some point during the race, an official claimed she saw some type of illegal device in Lindsey’s hand that was aiding her pull,” Lindstrom said. “They looked at her hands and found nothing. There’s an official on every lane at both ends of the pool, and it was only the one official. She couldn’t produce this device because there was no device. It was ridiculous.”

Lindstrom said he had since spoken to the president of USA Swimming, who apologized and said the official was wrong.

“It’s water under the bridge, and we’ve moved on,” Lindstrom said.

Horejsi will compete in numerous meets as a part of the Mantas, and her next big competition will be the USA Senior Nationals from Aug. 6 to 10 at the Northside Swim Center in San Antonio, Texas.

“That’s where all the Olympians go to swim, so that’ll be a big meet for me,” Horejsi said.

Horejsi is the second national champion Lindstrom coached. He also tutored Mankato West’s Danielle Nack, who has the Class A state record in the 50 freestyle with a time of 22.82 seconds and the fastest time ever by a girls’ swimmer in Minnesota in the 100 butterfly with a time of 52.41 seconds. Lindstrom said Nack is on a swimming scholarship at the University of Minnesota.