The Paly swimmers won the first league dual meet of the season against league rookies Lynbrook last Friday at Paly.

Both Paly varsity teams were victorious by over 50 points. The varsity boys won, 122-58, while the varsity girls triumphed as well, 118-63. The junior varsity teams achieved similar success. The JV boys won, 103-67, and the JV girls achieved a spectacular victory of 123-47.

“Considering the conditions, we did very well,” Paly varsity head coach Danny Dye said. “We’re in the hardest part of our training, doing a lot of yards, and still swam very fast.”

Technical problems with the scoring system plagued the meet before it could begin, delaying the start time from 3:30 to 4:00 p.m.

“We had received new equipment, but there was a miscommunication with the warehouse,” Dye said. “We sent our new equipment back to the warehouse. We used our old equipment today, but a lot of it wasn’t working.”

Once the meet started, however, the Vikings took the lead and never looked back. Varsity boys swept the 500-yard freestyle, with senior captain Edward Morrison winning with a time of 4:43.95, followed by freshman Mark Higgins at 4:44.62 and senior captain Robbie Nakamura at 5:06.72. All three swimmers’ times qualified for CCS.

The varsity girls also took the top three spots in the 50-yard freestyle, with sophomore Liv Jensen coming in first with a time of 23.84, automatically qualifying for All-American status. Senior captain Becky Wenzlau came in second with a time of 25.77, qualifying for CCS, and senior Donna Kremer placed third with a time of 26.61.

“We have lots of seniors this year,” Wenzlau said. “We also have a lot of girls coming up from JV. It’s a really close group, and everyone is doing well.”

However, the Lynbrook varsity teams scored several victories as well. In the varsity girls 100-yard butterfly, Lynbrook senior Nilasha Ghosh placed first with a time of 1:00:91 min., qualifying for CCS and beating the nearest Paly swimmer, senior captain Phoebe Champion, who came in at 1:04.19. In the varsity boys’ 50-yard freestyle, Lynbrook junior Brandt Robinson edged out Paly senior captain Eric Vallone with a time of 22.63 to Vallone’s 22.89.

“We were the league champions last year in the El Camino division,” Lynbrook head coach Patrick Ellington said. “This division is stronger. We have one All American boy and one All American girl. We’re going to be competitive for some teams, but don’t have the depth to be league champions this year.”

The Paly JV teams had impressive swims of their own. The girls swept the 500-yard freestyle, with sophomore Xiomara Pinto coming in first with a time of 6:00.94, junior Morgan Davies second at 6:07.61, and co-captain junior Natasha Whitney third with a time of 6:33.02.

“We lost a lot of fast swimmers to varsity this year,” Whitney said in the middle of the meet. “But our new freshmen have a lot of raw talent. We’re sweeping almost every event, and a lot of girls are swimming very fast.”

In the boys’ 50-yard freestyle, Paly’s two JV entrants took first and second, with sophomore Geng Wang swimming a 23.38 and sophomore co-captain Scott Mielke coming in at 25.59.

“We have a younger JV team this year,” said JV boys’ head coach Reid Particelli. “Varsity took a lot of our swimmers, but we placed second at the Sierra relays and we’re just getting better.”