Publication Date: Wednesday May 10, 2000

A recipe for swim success

If those folks who run the Pillsbury Bakeoff are interested, here's a winning recipe for a swim championship: Take a tablespoon of talent, a generous dolop of depth and a cup of team chemistry. Mix ingredients together and spread out over 12 events (24 for a double batch).

Then turn up the heat on your opponents for three hours. When they're fully cooked, toss your coach into the pool.

That system works for the Palo Alto High swim teams, which cooked up yet more winning performances last week at the SCVAL De Anza Division championships in Holy Cross Aquatic Center at St. Francis High.

The cream of the talent was provided by junior Eric DiIulio and senior Haley Champion. Both set meet records. Both won two individual events and swam on winning relays.

With those two leading the way, the Paly boys totaled 542 points to win their third straight league title. Los Altos (382) and Gunn (321) trailed in that order. The Viking girls, meanwhile, scored 508 points to win their sixth consecutive league crown, leaving St. Francis (330) and Gunn (316) in their wake.

While there was a lot to be pleased with, Paly coach Ro Davis quickly pointed to the bottom line.

"I'm just really pleased with our depth," he said. "We had 48 of a possible 64 swims in the championship finals. That's a lot of quality swims from quality swimmers. It was a true team victory."

In the boys' division, for example, the maximum number of swimmers from one school was 32 (four in each event, excluding relays and diving). Paly put 28 swimmers in the championship finals.

"Nobody was close to that," Davis said.

Paly, with many of its swimmers still unshaved, won two relays (Los Gatos won the 200 medley relay but was disqualified, giving the win to Paly) and three individual events. The Vikings had 12 top-three finishes in 12 events.

DiIulio, unshaved and ready for a bigger time drop at the Central Coast Section finals, won the 200 IM and 500 free with eye-opening times. His IM time of 1:53.00, for example, erased the meet record of 1:54.40 set by Mark Spitz in 1967 (and tied by Francis Tam of Monta Vista 30 years later) from the record book.

"I really surprised myself on that one," DiIulio said. "I was eyeing the record. I thought I had a shot at it. You get swept up in the team emotion and just feed off it."

Davis, for one, wasn't too surprised by his young standout.

"This is a grea pool," Davis said. "When Eric gets motivated . . . that's got to be encouraging for him."

In addition to that CCS-leading time, DiIulio lowered his CCS best time in the 500 free, as well, clocking 4:40.53 to win by nearly 10 seconds.

Paly sophomore Matt Rubenstein provided one of the bigger surprises in the meet, winning the 100 breast in a career-best of 1:02.22. Peter Davis, meanwhile, broke freshman school records while taking second in the 100 back (53.42) and second in the 100 back (55.00). The latter time made him No. 5 on the school's all-time varsity list.

Paly also lowered its CCS-leading time in the 400 free relay to 3:15.84 with a victory there. The Vikings' 200 free relay team did finish second in 1:29.57 (Los Altos won in 1:29.15), but all four relay members were unshaved--which means the school record of 1:27.57 from 1999 could be in jeopardy in two weeks when the CCS meet is held at the Santa Clara International Swim Center on May 20.

The Paly girls won their first (and only) section title in that pool in 1995. While the Vikings' hopes of repeating might have sunk when senior sprint standout Anna Vogt left the team early last week in order to train full-time for the German Olympic swim trials, Vogt's departure didn't hurt the Vikings' league meet.

Paly won all three relays with solid times, leaving room for improvement at CCS. Champion, who swam on two relays, broke her own meet record in the 100-yard back with CCS-leading 57.88, unshaved. Champion added a win in the 50 free (25.04) while her younger sister, Laurel, won the 100 free (54.91). Senior Danielle Page was second in the 500 free with a season best of 5:00.93 and second in the 100 breast.

Gunn was paced by Ashlee Rosenthal, who won the girls' 1-meter diving earlier in the week with 434.30 points. Sarah Peck (100 free) and Lizzy Stepanov (50 free) provided runnerup finishes.

Brian Mead paced the Gunn boys with a second-place finishes in the 50 free (22.46) and 100 free (48.75).

The Girls Private School League championships will be Thursday at Sacred Heart Prep, with a tentative starting time of 4 p.m. Trials are Wednesday afternoon. Menlo, the dual-meet champion, is favored to swim off with the league title.

The PAL Ocean Division finals will be Saturday at Sacred Heart Prep (11 a.m.) with the PAL Bay Division finals set for Saturday at Aragon, starting at 1 p.m.

Menlo (8-0) wrapped up the boys' PAL Bay Division dual-meet title last week with an 87-83 victory over visiting Aragon. Jeff Ida won the 50 free and 500 free, while a second-place finish in the 400 free relay was enough to clinch the title. 

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