Palo Alto’s Alex Liang put on two tremendous performances at the CIF State Swimming and Diving championships at Clovis West High on Saturday.
Liang, who will be joining his older brother Andrew at Stanford in the fall, won the 200 individual medley in 1:46.68, nearly two seconds faster than capturing the title in last week’s CCS meet, and placed second in the 500 free with a school record 4:21.89, nearly four seconds faster than last week’s time and two seconds better than last year’s time.
The combination of Gunn’s Michael Lincoln and Max Pokutta also produced impressive performances, helping the Titans finish third in the state with 94 points, just behind Northgate’s 97. Oak Ridge dominated the meet, scoring 165 points. Palo Alto was 21st with 37 points.
On the girls side, Grace Zhao went 1:00.66 to win the 100 breast and lower her own school record. She also recovered quite nicely in the 200 IM, where she placed ninth with the third-fastest time of the day at 1:59.26, slightly better than her CCS title time of 1:59.43.
Zhao joined Zoe Lusk, Peyton Wang and Claire Lin to swim 1:33.93 in the 200 free relay, just off their school mark (by .29) set at last year’s state meet.
Menlo-Atherton’s Izzi Henig was third in the 50 free with a personal best, and likely school record, 22.74. The CCS record is 22.24. Henig placed second in the 100 free with a 49.25, an improvement on her CCS time by .20.
Gunn’s girls 200 and 400 free relay teams also turned in top efforts. An all-sophomore team of Milan Hilde-Jones, Clara Schulz, Ashley Stahmer and Sarah Snyder went 1:34.27 to place fourth and knocked 1 1/2 seconds off their CCS time, enough to leap over M-A, which finished sixth at 1:35.73 with a team that included Henig, Sophie Murff, Faith Dunn and Kate Denend.
Gunn’s all-sophomore 400 free relay, which placed fifth in 3:25.53, consisted of Grace Tramack, Schulz, Stahmer and Snyder.
Castilleja’s Natalie Tuck swam 2:03.55 in the 200 IM and 5:04.39 in the 500 free. She scored all eight team points.
M-A’s 400 free relay team of Haley Arrington, Murff, Sofia de la Vega and Henig went 3:30.55 to place 13th.
Lusk also scored in individual events for the Vikings, placing fourth in the 200 IM in 2:01.41 and 10th in the 100 back in 55.12.
The Paly girls 200 medley relay team of Lusk, Zhao, Lin and freshman Amy Wu swam 1:43.11 to place third.
Lincoln and Pokutta helped Gunn gain some revenge for its third-place finish in the CCS by finishing third in the state, ahead of both Bellarmine and St. Francis.
Lincoln finished fourth in both the 200 free (1:37.23) and 500 free (4:27.33) while Pokutta was third in the breast (55.43) and seventh in the 200 IM (1:51.10).
Both also swam on Gunn’s 200 medley relay team, with Jonathan Affeld and Sebastain Cai, to place eighth in 1:34.50 and on the 400 free relay, with David Shau and Michael Chen, to place 10th in 3:06.52.
After 400 meters of the 500 free, Foothill’s Calvin David held a 1.56 lead on Liang, who proceeded to slice all but .23 seconds off that lead.
Liang took the lead early and was ahead after 150 meters before David gradually began pulling ahead.
By Palo Alto Online Sports
By Palo Alto Online Sports
By Palo Alto Online Sports
Congrats to the Paly girls and coach Danny Dye for another great swim year! Consecutive CCS titles and another Top 3 finish at states.
Also to the Paly boys and Gunn girls and boys for great performances We are lucky to have such a great club organization in PASA to help develop our swimmers!