The girls’ swim team (8-1, 5-1) won its eighth consecutive Santa Clara Valley Athletic League championship at Gunn High School on Friday.
The Vikings outdistanced crosstown rival Gunn, 483-449, to take the De Anza Division crown. The win avenged Paly’s lone dual meet loss against Gunn earlier in the season, which had ended its hope for a fourth consecutive undefeated league season. Behind strong relays, good individual efforts, and record-breaking wins by sophomore Jasmine Tosky, Palo Alto showed its depth and youth with underclassmen turning in impressive performances in all events.
Tosky led the Vikings with record-setting victories in the 200-yard freestyle and the 100-yard freestyle, while junior Sarah Liang contributed with big wins in the 200-yard individual medley and 100-yard breaststroke.
In the 200-yard freestyle, Tosky set a league record with a blazing All-American time of 1 minute 47.86 seconds. In the consolation final, junior Kimberley Hallsted, sophomore Rachelle Holmgren and senior Danielle Carlson finished first, second, and third respectively to give the Vikings valuable points.
In the 100-yard freestyle, Tosky broke the league record that she had set in trials on Thursday with a stellar All-American time of 50.20. Junior Sabrina Lee claimed seventh place with a time of 53.98.
Tosky was pleased with her record-setting swims.
“I swam pretty well today,” Tosky said. “I went out there to race hard. I want to keep it up for CCS [Central Coast Section].”
The Vikings dominated the 200-yard individual medley. Liang swam to victory in an All-American Consideration time of 2:05.96, freshman Molly Zebker followed close behind in fourth place in 2:10.02 and sophomore Laura Cui placed seventh in 2:14.54.
The 100-yard breaststroke also featured three Vikings in the final, which Liang won in an All-American Consideration time of 1:05.75. Cui placed fourth in 1:08.42 and sophomore Megan Brendenberg came in eighth in 1:11.78.
The 200-yard freestyle relay team of Liang, Lee, sophomore Margaret Wenzlau and Tosky was victorious in a league record and All-American time of 1:37.09.
Lee also placed fourth in the 100-yard backstroke in 1:00.39.
Wenzlau won the 100-yard butterfly in an All-American Consideration time of 57.4. Zebker followed in fourth place in 59.17. In the consolation final, senior Kaitlyn Tracy and junior Paige Devine finished one-two to gain more points for Paly. Wenzlau also placed fifth in the 50-yard freestyle in 24.88.
In one-meter diving, junior Gracie Greenwood edged out her competition by a tiny margin of 1.35 points, scoring 397.90 to win.
Holmgren placed sixth in the 500-yard freestyle in 5:26.30 and Carlson came in eight in 5:33.64.
The Paly team of Devine, Cui, Zebker and freshman Jennifer Chang placed third in the 200-yard medley relay in a time of 1:52.95.
The Vikings secured their eighth consecutive league victory when Liang, Lee, Wenzlau and Tosky powered Paly to a second place finish in the 400-yard freestyle relay with an All-American Consideration time of 3:34.19.
Despite suffering a shoulder injury during the warm up before the final relay, Liang swam through the pain and fatigue.
“Someone kicked me in the elbow and it popped my shoulder out of the socket,” Liang said. “It forced me to rotate less on the freestyle. As the day went on I got exponentially more tired as I went to morning practice today.”
After all the scores were announced, the team finally got to throw head coach Danny Dye into the pool, now a yearly ritual for Palo Alto swimming.
Dye was pleased with the girls’ performance to keep the championship at Palo Alto
“I’m very proud of the way the girls swam,” Dye said. “Most of them did not taper. They were gamers and went after it. It feels good to win an eighth championship in a row, it always feels good to win, but its more about seeing young people develop, the league championship is just icing.”
The fact that the Vikings overcame a league loss to rival Gunn, which occurred when the Palo Alto was missing Tosky and Liang, sweetened the title defense for Dye.
“It was extra nice to beat Gunn,” Dye said. “We lost to them at the dual meet, but we were not at full strength. We just had to keep focused. The dual meet is important but it is not the entire season. The girls kept it in the right frame of mind and took what was rightfully theirs. It was nice the see the girls’ overcome the mood and attitude coming out of Gunn. Once we were at full strength we were a team and they were awesome.”
Team captain Carlson was elated to win league for her fourth year in a row.
“It feels amazing to win leagues again,” Carlson said. “It’s so cool to have won every year I have been at Paly. The competition was tough and it is excellent to win senior year. The team has been working really hard and it feels so good to win against Gunn when it really counts, after they rubbed it in our face when they beat us during the season.”
With the CCS championship meet in two weeks, Paly has its eyes on the prize: the section title that eluded them by a mere three points last year.
“We are trying to win CCS,” Carlson said. “I think we can. I hope we can. It would be an awesome way to end high school.”
Palo Alto swimmers who qualified for CCS will swim trials on Friday, May 21 at the George F. Haines International Swim Center in Santa Clara.