Swimmers Swimmers (May 05, 2004)are all set for the finals

League championship meets this week for De Anza, WCAL and PAL Bay Division

by Keith Peters

The Palo Alto High swim teams will attempt to follow up their perfect dual-meet seasons by defending their respective titles in the SCVAL De Anza Division championships Friday at Los Altos High at 3 p.m..

The Menlo School boys and girls, meanwhile, also will attempt to duplicate last season's title sweep when the PAL Bay Division championships are held Saturday at Burlingame High at 11 a.m..

And, the Sacred Heart Prep boys will go after seemingly unbeatable Bellarmine while the SHP girls shoot for more season bests at the West Catholic Athletic League swim finals Saturday at Sacred Heart Prep at 1 p.m.

Diving finals and trials will be held throughout the week, but the big shows will be this weekend when local swimmers make their final preparations before the Central Coast Section Championships on May 15 at Independence High in San Jose.

The De Anza Division meet, for one, is assured of better weather than last year, when the finals were drenched by a storm and marred by a controversy that helped the Paly boys hold off Gunn, 398-381. The Paly girls also defeated Gunn, 530-464 1/2.

"There are a number of outstanding swimmers in our league this year, for both boys and girls," said Paly coach Jeff Peterson. "I think the meet will probably be more competitive than last year. As always, depth will be the key to winning this meet."

Mountain View, for example, has Stanford-bound standout Brooke Bishop. She's favored to win whatever she swims in addition to making two relays a threat. Palo Alto and Gunn, however, can counter Bishop's talent with their depth.

"Our girls have won their meets this year because they're a very deep team," said Peterson, who along with Linda Hildreth guided both Paly teams to 6-0 marks in league (9-0 overall). "They'll need to have contributions from everyone to defend their title.

"The boys' meet should be very competitive, and we'll have to be swimming best times to be able to compete for the title."

The Paly boys will bring the league's top 200 medley relay (1:42.73) and No. 2 400 free squad (3:24.50). Senior Kalani Leifer and freshman Peter Lo rank among the CCS best in their respective events. The Gunn boys have the league's fastest 200 free relay squad (1:31.34) while Matt Prior looks to contend individually.

For the girls, Paly has three top relays and plenty of individual firepower in juniors Remy Champion and Monika Friedman (defending 500 fre champ), plus sophomore Becky Wenzlau, the returning league champ in the 50 free. Paly's Heather Peng and Gunn's Emily Flaxman are the top two local returning divers while Gunn senior Lainey Eaton should contend for individual honors, as well.

The Gunn girls displayed their depth last week by edging Homestead, 92-91, on the strength of taking second and third in the final 400 free relay.

At the PAL meet, Menlo and Aragon should duel for team honors in both the boys' and girls' meets, with the Menlo-Atherton girls figuring to duplicate last season's third-place finish. The Menlo boys, who went undefeated in the dual-meet season, edged Aragon in last year's league finals by a mere three points.

Seniors Steven Wright and Taylor Wells, along with sophomore Travis Read, were all undefeated during the dual-meet season.

Menlo's Mary Ann Hiller (100 breast) and M-A's Kelly Eaton (200 IM, 100 back) are among the best in the CCS in their respective events, while the Knights' Kelsey Haley and the Bears' Danielle Hildebrandt should figure big in the point scoring, as well.

In the WCAL, the SHP boys are coming off their first-ever dual-meet victory over St. Francis (105-70) and could ride that momentum into the league meet. The Gators (6-1) finished second to Bellarmine in the dual-meet season and likely will finish second to the Bells in the league finals.

The Gators have a number of CCS-caliber athletes in sprinter Brandon Child, IMer Kameron Flores-Maxfield, and distance ace Bradley Thompson.

The Mitty girls are overwhelming favorites to defend, but SHP should have a number of fine swims. The Gators' 200 medley relay team of Tiffany Yim, Megan Maurano, Shayne McGanney and Genevieve Ang broke the school record for the second time this season when they clocked 1:53.72 in a dual-meet loss to St. Francis last week.
Baseball

Menlo wrapped up the PAL Lake Division title and automatic CCS berth with a 6-0 victory over host South San Francisco last Friday. Senior Chuck Huggins (8-1) pitched a complete-game three-hitter and struck out 13 to pace the Knights (12-0, 18-5).

It was Menlo's first PAL title after 14 years. The Knights were members of the old SPAL and then the PAL from 1976-87 (but never won a title), then rejoined the league last year. Menlo did win 13 league titles in 15 years in the Private Schools Athletic League.

Second-place Palo Alto (11-3, 16-7) will visit first-place Wilcox (13-1) Wednesday in a battle between the top two teams in the SCVAL De Anza Division

The Vikings tuned up for that showdown with an 8-3 nonleague win at Sacred Heart Prep (15-5) on Saturday. Senior David Stringer allowed just one hit in four scoreless innings for the Vikings, while senior Russ Hagemann hit his first career home run. Paly took advantage of six walks and two SHP errors.

Boys tennis

Six-time defending champion Menlo School (16-6) is expected to host a CCS first-round match Wednesday at 2:30 p.m., as should Palo Alto (17-5).

The Knights learned last week that they'll be without Alex Kaufman, who'll miss the remainder of the season with a shoulder injury. Senior Scott Blumenkranz, however, is back in the lineup and showed his fitness by winning the PAL Bay Division singles title with a 6-3, 6-2 win over Steve Benvenuto of Aragon.

In the doubles finale, Menlo's Elliot Tight and Daniel Goldstein rallied to defeat Aragon's John Hayashi and Bryant Chang, 6-7 (4-7), 7-5, 6-4.
Track and field

The Gunn and Palo Alto boys and girls will seek team and individual honors at the SCVAL De Anza Division championships on Thursday at Los Altos High at 2 p.m.

Gunn made its final tuneup on Saturday by sending a handful of athletes to the Meet of Champions in Sacramento. Junior Tori Tyler clocked a lifetime best of 5:00.62 while finishing fourth in the girls' invitational 1,600, while sophomore Orlie Kapitulnik ran lifetime bests of 12.69 in the 100 and 26.13 in the 200, finishing sixth in both races.

John McGee was second in the non-invitational 800 in 1:59.12 and Andrew Lipkin was seventh in the boys' 1,600 in 4:26.71.

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