The Palo Alto High School girls’ swim team (6-1, 4-1) won the Invitational Section Challenge for the second consecutive year against fierce competition from eight other teams on Saturday at the MacKenzie Aquatic Center in Palo Alto.
The Vikings edged out reigning CCS champion Archbishop Mitty High School by four-and-a-half points, 266-261.5 in a fast meet that brought competition from the Central Coast, North Coast and Sacramento San Joaquin Sections.
The Section Challenge allows teams to showcase their individual ability rather than overall depth, as each team is allowed two entries in each event instead of the four allowed in Santa Clara Valley Athletic League meets. This means that the fastest swimmers from each team will swim only their best events, negating the depth advantage that larger teams have in the SCVAL format. This year’s Section Challenge produced some of the fastest times in history with six meet records broken. Palo Alto swimmers were responsible for four of those record performances.
Four individual victories and two record-setting relays powered the Vikings through the meet. Sophomore Jasmine Tosky and junior Sarah Liang contributed two wins apiece. The race for the Section Challenge title came down to the final 400-yard relay, in which Palo Alto pulled out a record time to win the meet. Last year, Paly had beaten Mitty for the title by only half a point; however, Mitty went on to beat the Vikings at CCS by three points.
In the 200-yard freestyle, Tosky sped to a commanding victory in a time of 1 minute 50.12 seconds, shattering the meet record by six seconds. Tosky’s time was four seconds faster than that of the second place competitor and three seconds off the CCS record, an impressive feat considering the Section Challenge is not a shave-and-taper meet and most of the competitors were not wearing technical racing suits.
Liang continued Paly’s dominance with a victory in the 200-yard individual medley in a time of 2:05.18.
Sophomore Margaret Wenzlau tied for second in the 50-yard freestyle in a time of 24.87, gaining valuable points for the Vikings that were vital to the team victory. Wenzlau also placed third in the 100-yard butterfly in a time of 57.16, under the meet record.
Tosky continued her record-setting streak with a time of 4:51.35 in the 500-yard freestyle. Tosky, the CCS record holder in the event, crushed the Section Challenge record by an impressive nine seconds.
The Paly relay team composed of junior Sabrina Lee, freshman Jennifer Chang, Wenzlau and Tosky then won the 200-yard freestyle relay in another meet record of 1:38.66. Tosky anchored the relay in 22.57, the fastest 50-yard split of the day.
Liang, the CCS record holder in the 100-yard breaststroke, closed out the individual events with a victory in that event with a time of 1:05.73.
The Vikings trailed Mitty entering the final event of the day, the 400-yard freestyle relay. With strong performances by Liang, Lee, Wenzlau and Tosky, Paly pulled out an exhilarating first place finish to emerge as the champion for the second consecutive year. The relay set a meet record in a time of 3:32.95, with Tosky delivering a clutch performance as the anchor leg with a blistering split of 50.20.
Tosky was pleased with her record-setting swims and has set her goals for the rest of the season.
“My goals were to work on my technique and maintaining a threshold pace,” Tosky said. “I think I swam perfectly okay. I hope to win my events at CCS and score as high up in the relays as possible.”
The Vikings defeated Mitty, San Ramon Valley, Campolindo, Harker, Granite Bay, Sacred Heart Preparatory and Monta Vista, showing how well Palo Alto stacks up against competition from other sections.
Senior co-captain Claire Guo credited the team’s victory to hard work in practice.
“I think our determination and work over the past few weeks helped us win,” Guo said. “It feels great to repeat [as Section Challenge winners] because many of the schools we competed against will be at CCS. We are getting ready for league championships and CCS and we really want to win both.”
The Vikings have one more SCVAL opponent before the championship meet. Palo Alto faces Homestead High School at 3:30 p.m. on April 29 at Homestead.