The Palo Alto High School boys’ swim team started this season strong with a convincing win, 101-85, over Los Gatos High School in its first league meet of the season on Friday at Paly.
While this win was not unexpected, the boys had to fight hard for it, as Los Gatos is one of Paly’s main competitors, according to head coach Danny Dye.
“Los Gatos is the team I felt we had to beat,” Dye said. “The guys did exactly what I told them to do, and I am very happy with the way they swam.”
According to Dye, there was no single stand-out performance, as the team relied on strong swims across the board.
“There were no MVPs,” Dye said. “It was truly a team effort. That’s what made me so happy.”
The boys showed this team effort in the first event, the 200-yard medley relay, as the two Paly relay teams claimed second and third place. The Vikings expected tough competition from the Los Gatos team, but the swimmers still all gave their best efforts.
“We knew we weren’t going to win,” sophomore Corso Rosati said. “We just knew we had to swim, and we swam like we were going to win.”
Rosati swam the breaststroke leg of the second place relay with senior co-captain Ian Schubert on butterfly, sophomore co-captain Byron Sanborn on backstroke, and freshman Eren Kiris on freestyle.
The boys had relatively few individual wins, but notable performances included sophomore co-captain Rollin Lau’s victory in the 500-yard freestyle in 4 minutes, 59.76 seconds, sophomore Charles Zhang’s victory in the 100-yard breaststroke in 1:05.68, and a victory in the 200-yard free relay by senior co-captain Bobby Abbott, junior Arseny Kotov, sophomore Youngkuk Lee, and Lau.
“The other team was really good,” Sanborn said. “Erich Peske was very fast.”
Peske won the 200-yard freestyle and the 100-yard backstroke and also contributed to relay efforts.
However, the Paly team showed its depth as it picked up many points from second, third and fourth place finishes to capture the win.
“It was more about beating the guy next to you than the time you swam,” Abbott said. “We were swimming to win the meet.”
Abbott claimed second in the 50-yard freestyle in 23.09 seconds and third in the 100-yard freestyle in 51.46 seconds. He also swam a 23.15-second split to lead off the first place 200-yard freestyle relay, and a 51.24-second split to lead off the second place 400-yard freestyle relay.
Sanborn also contributed second and third place finishes in the 100-yard backstroke (54.65 seconds) and 200-yard freestyle (1:48.74). He feels that the solid performances really reflect the team’s hard work during practice.
“We were all working hard so it just kind of paid off,” Sanborn said. “We’ve been doing a lot more yardage and added another morning practice.”
The team has certainly had to work to fill up the places of distance standout Mark Higgins and backstroke specialist Tim Wenzlau, both of whom graduated last year.
“We lost strong swimmers,” senior Emerson Shiang said. “I’m proud of all the underclassmen. I think it really helped that during practice the seniors and underclassmen encourage each other.”
Lau feels that this year’s team might actually be stronger than last year’s as a result of its extensive training and depth.
“We tied them [Los Gatos] last year,” Lau said.
Even when victory seemed certain near the end of the meet, the Vikings still fought in the final event, the 400-yard relay, barely losing to Los Gatos in the final leg as Kotov brought in a personal best 48.22 split.
“We had our best relay at the end,” Kotov said. “We just got out-touched a little. I think we have a chance of getting an All-American relay so we definitely have a lot of potential.”
The boys’ next competition will be against Monta Vista High School at 3:30 p.m. next Friday at home.
“We’re going to smoke them,” Abbott said.