The Paly swim teams unleashed their power on Friday as all four teams proceeded to crush Los Altos.
Both varsity teams had margins of victory of over 70 points as the varsity girls won, 125-54, while the boys went 129-55. The JV teams enjoyed similar success, with the boys winning, 119-65, and the girls having a slightly closer meet at 102-74. The overwhelming victory surprised even head coach Danny Dye, who was the Los Altos head coach until this year.
“Los Altos isn’t as strong as in the past but they still have a few stand-out swimmers,” Dye said. “I knew we’d win solid but not by this much. The varsity guys won by 74 points, the girls won by 71 points, and they didn’t have Tanya Wilcox. Two of our swimmers also qualified for CCS; Mike Sorgenfrei in the 50 free and Justin Takamine in the 100 breast.”
In varsity, Los Altos won a total of two events, the boys’ 50-yard freestyle and diving. Paly’s single diver was sick, gaining Los Altos 10 points.
One of the closest events was the varsity boys’ 200-yard freestyle. Paly junior Edward Morrison came back from behind on the first lap, 24.90 to 24.67, to finish with a time of 1:46.17, edging out Los Altos senior Connor McColl by less than a second.
According to varsity boys’ captain Jeremy Goldstein, Palo Alto simply outclassed Los Altos.
“They have a few good swimmers,” Goldstein said. “But they don’t have the same depth as us.”
Paly dominated throughout the entire meet. In the varsity girls’ 500-yard freestyle, Paly’s lone swimmer, senior Monika Friedman, swam a time of 5:25.57, defeating the nearest Los Altos swimmer by over 25 seconds. Freshman Emily Kennan defeated the nearest Los Altos opponent in the JV girls’ 500-yard freestyle by 36 seconds with a time of 6:22.40, while sophomore Timmo Davis drowned Los Altos by almost a full minute with a time of 5:17.29 in the same event for the JV boys.
After finishing the 500-yard freestyles, the varsity boys and girls had scores of 83-41 and 77-47, respectively, while the JV boys led, 78-41. The JV girls had a closer meet throughout, as they were only ahead 64-52 as of the 500-yard freestyle.
Varsity girls’ captain senior Remy Champion looked ahead when discussing the meet.
“This is one of the last meets before tapering, where we swim less yardage but more sprints,” Champion said. “We’re starting to prepare for leagues and CCS. If you make the CCS time in any meet, it counts, so we want people to be rested to get the time.”
The Paly swim teams’ next meet is against Saratoga at 3 p.m. on Thursday at Saratoga.