Publication Date: Wednesday, May 11, 2005
PREP SWIMMING
Fast tuneups
Fast tuneups
(May 11, 2005)for the CCS
championships
by Keith Peters
The performances just rocked last weekend in three of the fastest high school league meets in recent years. On swimming's Richter Scale, they were nearly a 10.
Meet records tumbled. School records crumbled. Even All-American consideration times were achieved.
And, the year's fastest prep meet - the Central Coast Section Swimming and Diving Championships - is still to come this Friday (trials) and Saturday (finals) in Stanford's Avery Aquatic Center.
The tuneups for CCS certainly provided a sneak preview of what to expect this weekend.
At the SCVAL De Anza Division finals, the Palo Alto girls and boys captured the overall league titles while the Gunn boys won the league meet. A total of 187 CCS times were turned in.
At the PAL Bay Division championships, the Menlo boys used their depth to defend their crown while the Menlo girls did likewise despite a superlative effort from Menlo-Atherton.
At the West Catholic Athletic League finals, the Sacred Heart Prep boys and girls didn't figure in the team races but did come away with five school records.
Clearly, it was a win-win situation for nearly everyone. Well, almost.
"It was a good league final, with one exception," said Menlo-Atherton coach Rick Longyear, whose girls' team was primed to win its first overall league title since 1997.
All the Bears had to do was finish ahead of Menlo. Heading into the final event of the meet on Saturday at Burlingame High, the Knights held a one-point lead. When the Bears' 400 relay team of Kaitlyn Sitts, Kelly Eaton, Danielle Hildebrandt and Heidi Kucera finished first in 3:37.11 to smash league and school records, it appeared M-A finally had ended Menlo's domination.
In the B race just prior to that, however, the winning M-A relay team was disqualified when the anchor leg left the blocks early. The Bears lost 18 points and Menlo's B squad gained four by moving up. That 22-point swing was a major factor in a 457-446 victory for the Knights.
"It was bittersweet," said Menlo coach Terence O'Malley. "It was good stuff for us, but unfortunate for Menlo-Atherton."
"After all the swimming that went on before, that was a tough way to go down," Longyear said. "But, it didn't take away from all the good swimming we did. We had great swims throughout the meet."
In fact, there were great swims by everyone.
In the girls' meet, Menlo won the opening 200-yard medley relay in 1:51.83 to set the tone of the competition. Senior Maryann Hiller, who swam a leg on that squad, later won the 100 breast in a meet-record 1:05.19. Angie McPhaul, Whitney Allen, Kiki Hiller, Kelsey Haley, Kim Krueger and Megan Burmeister all contributed big points to Menlo's winning effort.
Menlo had 19 finalists score while M-A had 14.
Menlo-Atherton, meanwhile, set four school records while pushing Menlo all meet long. Danielle Hildebrandt broke the 200 free mark with a second-place time of 1:55.17. Kelly Eaton erased a 12-year-old meet record with a sizzling 57.99 to win the 100 back. A third junior, Heidi Kucera, lowered her own 100 breast record with a second-place time of 1:06.48 and the 400 free relay squad erased the second-oldest record in M-A's history book (from 1983) with its CCS-leading time. Kucera also won the 100 free in a PR of 53.60 and Eaton won the 200 IM in a PR of 2:10.55.
Another factor in the girls' final standings was the performance by Burlingame, which won five events. The Bears finished second in four of those, with the difference between winning and losing costing M-A 15 points - enough to change the outcome of the meet.
In the boys' PAL meet, Menlo defended its title as expected with 468 points while Aragon was second 359 and Menlo-Atherton fourth. The Knights had 19 finalists to Aragon's 12. That depth proved crucial since Menlo had only two individual winners in junior Travis Read in the 100 fly (a season-best 54.69) and sophomore Mike Merlone in the 100 breast (1:03.92).
Dave Bar-Gadda, Pete Howard, Derick Chen, Kyle Hudson, Alex Seipp and Ben Hohl all contributed to Menlo's win.
M-A sophomore Peter Jacobs (second in 200 IM, third in 100 back) stood out for the Bears.
De Anza Division
The Palo Alto and Gunn boys and girls dominated once again in one of the fastest meets in recent years on Friday at Saratoga High.
The Paly girls, who won the dual-meet title with a 6-0 mark, won six events and finished second in three others while totaling 498 points. Gunn was runnerup again with 357.
The Paly boys, also undefeated during the dual-meet season, needed only to finish ahead of Monta Vista to claim the overall title like the girls. The Vikings did just that, scoring 432 points while Monta Vista was third with 390.5.
The Gunn boys, pointing to this week as in previous years, achieved their goal by winning their third meet crown in four years with 483.5 points.
"Given our dual-meet losses to Monta Vista and Palo Alto, we needed to win and get help from Monta Vista in order to win the combined title outright," said Gunn coach Mark Hernandez. "But, our boys focused on winning the last meet they possibly could; we know we can't win CCS, so we wanted to send our seniors away with a win."
The Gunn boys built an early lead by outscoring Paly in diving, 33-15. Once the swimming began, the Titans had the maximum of four swimmers in every non-relay event, six more than Paly. Gunn also had one more finalist and finished ahead of the Vikings in all three relays - including a victory in the opening 200 medley relay by a mere .06 of a second.
Junior Matt Priory added a victory in the 200 IM (a season best 1:58.72) and senior Ysbrand Nusse beat Paly's Jeremy Goldstein and Alec Goldfield to the finish line with a victory in the 500 free (4:51.81).
"Our boys knew we were better than the dual-meet results indicated, and they felt they had something to prove," Hernandez said. "When all was said and done, it was our best team performance ever. We're sending 17 boys, a team record, to the CCS championship meet . . . we swam out of our heads."
Paly, on the other hand, had only four of 16 swimmers tapered for the league meet.
"I think the guys did a great job," said first-year Paly coach Danny Dye. "They were a little disappointed they didn't get high (point) total at the meet. (But) Our goals were to win the (overall) league championship and place as high as possible at CCS. We've accomplished the first of those.
"We knew going in the league finals that Gunn had lost twice, so that allowed us to rest some of our athletes that we might normally have shaved. We only had to beat Monta Vista. We did that, still had great swims."
Paly junior Edward Morrison stood out with a victory in the 200 free (a PR of 1:44.47) and a second in the 100 free (48.02) while sophomore Peter Lo won the 100 breast (1:01.02) with a second in the 200 IM.
In the girls' meet, "I couldn't have written the times myself for the girls," Dye said. "They did a tremendous job."
Especially in the 200 and 400 free relays, where the Vikings set meet records of 1:40.37 (No. 2 in school history) and 3:37.63. Both were All-American consideration times. The 200 free relay team was comprised of all underclassmen - juniors Becky Wenzlau, Phoebe Champion, Donna Kremer and freshman Liv Jensen.
Jensen added individual wins in the 200 IM (2:13.55) and 100 breast (1:10.08) while Monika Friedman, the only senior on the 400 free relay team, won the 500 free in a season-best 5:05.44 and took second in the 100 fly with a PR of 57.84, an All-American consideration time.
WCAL
Sacred Heart Prep sophomore Kameron Flores-Maxfield and freshman Alex Navarro each broke two school records and swam on a record-breaking 200 medley relay team to highlight the Gators' efforts in the league finals Saturday at Bellarmine Prep.
Navarro set marks in the 200 free (second in 1:45.02) and 500 free (third in 4:42.43), while Flores-Maxfield set his marks while winning the 100 breast (59.98) and taking second in the 200 IM (1:57.63). They also swam on the 200 MR that clocked a school best of 1:42.18.
In the girls' meet, SHP's Megan Maurano lowered the school record in the 100 breast to 1:08.58 with a second-place finish. Tiffany Yim added thirds in the 200 IM (3:13.91) and 100 back (1:01.98).
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