Dolphins Splash Beverly Hills Meet

Palisades High Girls’ Varsity Swim Team Is Second, Boys Ninth

The mission is clear this season for the Palisades High girls’ varsity swim team: regain the City Section championship. The Dolphins will get their chance to do that come May, but the mission last week was to improve on last year’s fifth-place finish at the Beverly Hills Invitational. Mission accomplished. After strong qualifying times Wednesday, Palisades led for much of Friday’s finals meet before settling for second place out of 11 schools, just three points behind La Canada. The Spartans edged El Segundo in the 400 freestyle relay–the last event–to gain the points necessary to overtake Palisades by the slim margin of 244 to 241. Still, it was an impressive meet all around for the Dolphins. Hayley Hacker won the 100 backstroke in one minute, 2.75 seconds and fellow senior Hayley Lemoine swam third in the 200 individual medley (2:18.71), an event won by Palisadian Alex Edel of Harvard-Westlake in 2:15.70. Lemoine was fourth in the 100 freestyle in 56.80 seconds while seniors Shelby Pascoe (5:28.91) and Ana Silka (5:37.05) finished third and fourth, respectively, in the 500 freestyle then reversed their positions in the 200 freestyle, Silka taking third (2:04.03) and Pascoe fourth (2:07.33). Emily Newman, Fullerton, Pascoe and Silka were fifth in the 200 freestyle relay (1:47.96), and Mia Svenson was third in the 500 freestyle consolation final. “I didn’t go any best times but high school meets are more about placing rather than going best times,” Pascoe said. “Everyone on varsity swam really fast and it just happened at the end of the meet we were three points behind, but we did our best.” The Dolphins got off to a fast start when the foursome of Hacker, Sabrina Giglio, Lemoine and Newman finished second (1:54.89) in the 200 medley relay behind a Harvard-Westlake team that included three former Palisades-Malibu YMCA swimmers (Edel, Allison Merz and Catherine Wang). Junior Zoe Fullerton won the consolation final in the 200 individual medley in 2:27.41 and was sixth in the 100 butterfly championship heat. Giglio was fifth in the 100 breaststroke finals and Jeanelle Manzo was sixth in the consolation final. Rachel Jaffe was seventh in the 100 backstroke consolation final (1:12.10). Hacker was seventh (27.13) in the 50 freestyle finals while Newman was fourth in the consolation final (27.32) Having won its first two meets–Granada Hills and San Pedro–the girls’ varsity is showing tremendous depth. For instance, sophomore Samantha Rosenbaum’s second place swim in the consolation final of the 200 freestyle, just 53 hundredths of a second behind winner Lauren Nadel of Santa Monica High. The frosh/soph girls also performed well. The Dolphins’ 400 freestyle relay team of Tatiana Fields, Olivia Marsh, Mara Silka and Cynthia Jinno was fourth in 4:11.56, Jinno was sixth in the 100 individual medley (1:12.07) and 50 butterfly (31.18), Silka was third in the 200 freestyle (2:12.28) and Eve Baryotam and Mara Silka were third and fifth, respectively, in the 200 individual medley. Fields was fourth in the 100 freestyle (59.82), the 200 freestyle relay of Baryotam, Mara Silka, Soheila Kamjou and Olivia Marsh was third in 1:51.81, Kamjou was fourth in the 50 backstroke (32.61), Baryotam was third in the 50 breaststroke (36.60) and the 200 medley relay team of Kamjou, Baryotam, Jinno and Fields was second in 2:06.20. The boys’ varsity team was ninth in a field of 12 teams with 77 points, finishing 17 points ahead of Western League rival Venice. The 400 freestyle relay team of seniors John Cullen and Lev Vaysman, sophomore Stephan Kang and junior Kai Alexander swam second behind Culver City in the consolation final in 3:45.62. Cullen was seventh (1:48.20) in the 200 medley relay final and sixth in the 100 backstroke (58.80), senior Wyatt Elliot was seventh in the 50 freestyle (23.79), sophomore John James Amis was fifth in the 100 breaststroke final (1:05.57) and the 200 freestyle relay foursome of Elliot, Amis, Kang and Alexander was second to Torrance by seven hundredths of a second in 1:39.50. For the frosh/soph boys, Matthew Hammer was fourth in the 100 breaststroke (1:02.27), fellow sophomore Andrew Hacker was third in the 200 freestyle (1:57.89), sophomore Sid Prabhu was seventh in the 100 butterfly (1:07.04) and the 200 medley relay of Hammer, Anthony Pronichenko, Henry Siegel and Alistair Whatley was seventh in 1:59.45. The girls’ varsity team remains focused on its primary mission. “Hopefully by [City] finals some of our faster frosh/soph swimmers will move up to varsity to give us the depth we need to win,” Pascoe said. “It would be great to win City this year as a senior and reclaim our title from Cleveland, which beat us last year.” sports@palipost.com