The Palo Alto High School swim teams ended their season with a splash at the Central Coast Section Championship Finals. Both of the girls’ and boys’ teams finished in 2nd place at the Santa Clara International Swim Center on Saturday afternoon.
The Lady Vikes went into the meet seeded 10 points ahead of the Monarchs, but began the meet with a costly disqualification due to a fault at the start of the 200 medly relay. The relay team consisted of Sabrina Lee (’11), Sarah Liang (’11), Laura Cui (’12) and Margaret Wenzlau (’12). The disqualification lost them their forty first place points. The Monarchs placed second in the medley.
Jasmine Tosky (’12) pulled in two important wins for the Lady Vikes in the 200 yard freestyle and 100 butterfly. In prelims on Friday, Tosky broke the old CCS record of 52.77 and the Girls Public High School national record of 52.41 with her time of 51.92.
Lee placed fourth in the 100 yard backstroke and Liang placed second in the 100 yard breaststroke. Wenzlau took sixth in the 100 yard butterfly and seventh in the 200 individual medley. A relay team of Wenzlau, Liang, Tosky, and Jayna Wittenbrink (’14) placed first in the 200 yard freestyle. The Lady Vikes trailed the Monarchs going into the final event of the 400 yard freestyle, and a third place finish could not bring their point total past that of Mitty.
For the boys, Byron Sandborn (’12) placed third in both the 100 yard breaststroke and 200 yard medley. Standout freshmen Andrew Liang (’14) took third in the 50 yard freestyle and fifth in the 100 yard butterfly. William Lee (’13) took ninth in the 200 individual medley. The Vikings 200 yard medley relay of Lee, Sandborn, DJ Fotsch (’11) and Arseny Kotov (’11) took fourth and their 200 yard freestyle relay of Liang, Lee, Rollin Lau (’12) and Kotov took sixth.
In diving, Cole Plambeck (’13) won the Vikings points by placing fourth and Jordan Zenger (’11) placed eight. For the girls, Grace Greenwood (’11) won points for the Lady Vikes’ by placing second.
For the Vikings, this year’s finish was a great improvement to their sixth place finish in the 2010 season. With most of the boys points being scored by juniors, sophomores and freshmen, the boys have high hopes for next year’s season.
This is the Lady Vikes third consecutive second place finish.
Editors Note: The 200 IM team took fourteenth place. Not fourth as previously stated. William Lee also placed ninth in 100 backstroke.
