The Palisades High swimming teams put on a show last Friday afternoon at the John Argue Swim Stadium, closing out the day with a second-place overall finish, something all the more impressive considering the Dolphins lack a diving team (which helped boost Cleveland’s winning point total to 770 ahead of Pali’s 731). Ultimately, the Dolphin girls team prevailed as champions with 458.5 points, well ahead of Cleveland (385) and Granada Hills (223). Meanwhile, the Pali boys finished fourth with 272.5 points, behind Cleveland (385), Granada (311) and Birmingham (305). With the stadium walls plastered with school posters and hundreds of spectators roaring, the Championships began swimmingly for the Dolphins. In the opening race, the 200-yard medley relay, the Pali girls team of Soheila Kamjou, Mara Silka, Sabrina Giglio and Zoe Fullerton finished second in 1:57.33. Immediately after, the boys team of Andrew Hacker, J.J. Amis, Henry Siegel and Anton Pronichenko won their 200 medley relay in 1:44.02, beating Cleveland. Late in the day, the Pali girls 400 freestyle relay team of Silka, Hannah Kogan, Tatiana Fields and Alli Vitous put together a wire-to-wire victory with a 3:44.91. Moments later, the boys team (Amis, Hacker and freshmen Michael Lukasiak and Tristan Marsh) closed out the meet with a thrilling second-place finish, where Marsh went neck-and-neck with Granada’s Grant Richman before touching at 3:22.54, just moments behind Richman’s 3:22.03. In between the beginning and end, there were numerous impressive individual performances that contributed to Pali’s solid final results. ’It was amazing,’ coach Maggie Nance said of the City finals. ‘We had a great year, the girls are so strong and so deep and almost everyone made it into top 16, which was a real feat.’ ’For the boys, I was hoping they would do better as a group,’ said Nance, who thought they could take second. ‘But everyone individually had a great season. And I was really impressed with how much faster everyone got as the season progressed.’ For the girls, one of the most impressive team results came in the 200 freestyle, where the Dolphins placed four girls in the top eight. Vitous was the winner in 1:58.39 with Fields second, Samantha Rosenbaum sixth and Ellen Silka seventh. Vitous, a sophomore, followed up by winning the 500 freestyle, where her time of 5:15.48 outpaced runner-up Marie Alderman of Cleveland by 15 seconds. Then, Vitous swam the first-leg of Pali’s winning 200 freestyle relay team (along with Kogan, Evelina VanNordan and Jayme Rossie) for another win. In all, she took first in all four of her events. (Continued on Page 10) Meanwhile, Kogan, a senior who swam with Vitous in both winning relays, also added an individual win in the 100 freestyle, winning comfortably in 54.14. In all for the girls, the Dolphins placed two or more swimmers in the top eight in every event (with the exception of the 100 backstroke, where Kamjou still finished second), a true testament to the team’s depth. ’Our team really pulled together during the finals,’ senior and team captain Rosenbaum said. ‘I was so impressed about how the team supported each other (throughout the year). In the end, everything worked out and everybody did their absolute best.’ For the boys, Amis nearly matched Vitous’ feat. Individually, the junior swept the freestyle sprint events, winning the 50 free (where his time of 22.19 tied San Pedro’s Christian Diehm) and the 100 free (swimming 48.89 to Diehm’s 50.24). He added a first in the 200 medley relay and a second in the 400 free relay. Hacker, who also swam on both those relay teams, added individual second-place results in both the 200 and 500 free finals. Meanwhile, freshman Tristan Marsh (who swam in the 400 free relay with Hacker and Amis) also finished second twice, in the 200 individual medley and the 100 butterfly. Despite the strong showings from the Dolphin boys, there was a feeling that the team could have placed higher. ’I’m certainly disappointed with the fourth-place finish,’ said Pronichenko, a sophomore. ‘I feel that we didn’t have the depth that our girls and the other teams did. Hopefully, this year’s frosh-soph swimmers will step it up and fill those gaps next year. By next year, I’m also hoping that we’ll have a dive team, which will help us achieve our goals.’ Nance, for one, sounded ready to keep things going next season’for both teams. ’The future is bright,’ she said, also citing a crop of younger swimmers who will head to PaliHi in the coming years to augment the already talented and youthful core. ‘The girls look great and the boys are just going to get stronger.’
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