Dolphins Swim Second in City

Pali Girls Fall Short in Bid for Fourth Straight City Section Title; Boys Fifth

It didn’t take long for the tone to be set at last Wednesday’s City Section Swim Championships at John C. Argue Stadium in Los Angeles. After being thumped by Palisades last year, Cleveland High’s girls varsity squad was looking to get even this time around and the Cavaliers showed they meant business right from the start, edging the Dolphins in the 200-yard medley relay by three tenths of a second. A strong butterfly leg by Valerie Orellana made up .79 seconds and gave Cleveland the lead, which it maintained when freestyler Kristina Choi matched Palisades’ Hayley Lemoine stroke for stroke in identical anchor splits of 25.39 seconds. Though Palisades held a slight lead at the halfway point of the meet, the writing was on the wall. Depth won the Dolphins their third consecutive City title last season but this time Cleveland proved to be deeper, leading to 295 1/2 points, 43 more than the second-place Dolphins, who saw their latest dynasty come to an end. Ana Silka was fifth in the 200 freestyle (2:02.14) and Shelby Pascoe won the consolation final in 2:04.58. In the 200 individual medley Lemoine was second (2:15.19), Zoe Fullerton tied for fourth (2:21.63) and Hayley Hacker was sixth (2:22.32). Hannah Kogan swam fourth in the 50 freestyle (26.19) while Fullerton and Lemoine were third and fourth, respectively, in the 100 butterfly. Kogan won the consolation final in the 100 freestyle and Pascoe (5:30.90) and Mara Silka (5:44.43) were fourth and fifth, respectively, in the 500 freestyle. The 200 freestyle relay team of Kogan, Emily Newman and the Silka sisters finished third while Hacker was runner-up to Orellana in the 100 backstroke. Alyssa Machida was third in the 100 breaststroke in 1:14.63 and the 400 freestyle relay of Lemoine, Pascoe, Hacker and Ana Silka was third. Frosh/soph standout Tatiana Fields won the 200 freestyle (2:09.06) and took second in the 50 freestyle while Samantha Rosenbaum won the 100 freestyle in 1:03.77. Rachel Jaffe took second in the 100 individual medley and 50 backstroke and Lynn Whang was runner-up in the 50 butterfly. For the boys, freshman John Amis was fourth in the 50 freestyle (23.11) and tied for first in the 100 freestyle consolation final (51.72). The 200 freestyle relay team of Wyatt Elliott, DeMayo, Lev Vaysman and Amis swam fifth and Shervin Ghaffari was fifth in the 100 breaststroke. The 400 freestyle relay (Danny Hernandez, DeMayo, Justin Nam and Amis) was sixth overall. The Dolphins won the frosh/soph 200 medley relay in 2:02.12 and Andrew Hacker won the 200 frosh/soph freestyle (2:04.99) and took second in the 50 backstroke. Cleveland mounted a huge comeback over the final three events to win the boys’ varsity title with 179 points. Palisades finished a respectable fifth with 118 points. Cleveland became the first school to win both the boys and girls team titles in the same year since the Dolphins did it in 2003.