By STEVE GALLUZZO | Sports Editor

Tennis is mostly an individual sport, but for Braun Levi and Cooper Schwartz, teamwork is the name of the game. The two Palisadians are not only teammates on the varsity team at Loyola High, but they have joined forces to become one of the top doubles tandems in the CIF Southern Section, as evidenced by their run to the quarterfinals of the Ojai Tournament last week.

Being best buddies makes it easy for them to pump each other up when one or the other is off his game and living in the same town provides ample opportunity for off the court activities as well.

“We met through tournaments in juniors and we’ve been competing against each other since we were kids,” said Cooper, who recalled winning their first USTA match in a super tiebreaker when they were 10. “We’re both extremely competitive so we don’t really need to say too much. It’s easy to get down on yourself [in singles], but in doubles you have a rock to lean on.”

Schwartz lives in the Riviera, started playing tennis at age 6 and has been taking lessons for close to a year now from former Palisades High and USC player Jake Sands, who lives nearby. He transferred from Brentwood to Loyola between his freshman and sophomore years.

“Braun and his dad were a big part of that.” he admits.

Levi, who lives a few houses down from St. Matthew’s, has played the sport his whole life and attended Corpus Christi School before becoming a Cub. They played with different partners last year but since uniting they have done nothing but win. The day before Ojai, they won the Mission League doubles title, beating a pair of duos from highly-ranked Harvard-Westlake in the process.

Levi and Schwartz are also good friends with Palisades’ top two singles players, Lorenzo Brunkow and Neel Joshi, who both reside in Topanga and play doubles together in junior events. Braun and Schwartz lost to the Pali pair 8-6 in a junior tournament last year but got revenge of sorts when they recently won a friendly best two-of-three sports clash at Pepperdine.

“They thought they were better athletes so we said ‘Okay, let’s see’ and we played them in tennis, basketball and pickleball,” Levi said. “They got us in tennis but we beat them in basketball and pickleball… Cooper is really good!”

The two hang out in the Palisades and at Will Rogers beach all the time. Schwartz also plays golf and is a member at Riviera. Levi is a member at Bel-Air Bay Club. Although they are accomplished singles players, they have seemingly found their niche in doubles. At the Ojai they lost a combined four games in their first two matches, then outlasted Edison’s Dylan Trinh and Kai Stolaruk 6-1, 6-7, 6-4 in the round of 16 before falling to No. 2-seeded Caleb Settles and Mtaeen Ghafarshad of Claremont.

There has been no “sophomore slump” on the race track this season for Palisadian Jaxon Bell.

The 2021 Palisades High graduate recorded six wins and made the podium 11 times in 16 races as a rookie in the Skip Barber Formula Race Series last year.

Last weekend, Bell picked up right where he left off, making his dad Townsend (a three-time Top-10 finisher at the Indianapolis 500) proud with a pair of third-place finishes in Round 2 of the 2024 Toyota GR Cup Championship at Sebring International Raceway in Florida.

The ex-Pali Elementary and Calvary Christian student qualified sixth in the first race with the second-fastest lap before taking third and qualified seventh in the second race, again posting the second-fastest lap. with another third-place result.

“What a weekend, started tough…finished strong,” Bell said. “We had some gearbox issues on Thursday that prevented us from getting any meaningful practice so we started off Friday a bit behind but my team rallied to get my #99 BraunAbility Toyota sorted and I was pleased with my race pace. I’m very proud to get this double-podium result for BraunAbility and all of our partners. We’re getting closer to the top step.”

The next round is May 16-19 in Austin, Texas at the F1 track-Circuit of the Americas.

By STEVE GALLUZZO | Sports Editor

Perseverance paid off for Palisades High senior Parker Connor, who won the City Section girls diving championship last Tuesday at Maggie Gilbert Aquatic Center.

After placing fifth last season, Connor took first place this time with a cumulative score of 443.95 after 11 dives off the 1-meter springboard— using consistency and a carefully planned repertiore to beat runner-up Ava San Jose of Granada Hills by 17.75 points.

“I’ve been training consistently and practicing more difficult dives for the past year,” said Connor, whose favorite is the back one-and-a-half-flip with one and a half twists. “I love the harder dives but there is strategy in deciding whether to leave them out. There are some really good divers on my own team so I didn’t think I’d get first.”

Connor’s highest score of the day was an 8.5 on a one-half flip with a front full twist, which she purposely picked as one her first three dives. She not only won a gold medal, she earned 20 precious points that counted towards’ Palisades’ team total at the City swim finals four days later. Fellow Dolphins Noelle Tobin (417.20), Sophia Bleau (321.70) and Helena Gabrielsen (237.90) placed third, fourth and sixth, respectively, at their home pool. San Pedro’s Sophia Fourmy (293.20) was fifth.

Connor greatly improved on last year’s score (377.95) when Elle Crisostomo of Harbor Teacher won and Catherine Hart of Palisades was second. The last Dolphin winner was Maya Salvitti in 2021.

Josiah Rosales-Cristales, a 14-year-old freshman from Hawkins who taught himself howe to dive by watching YouTube videos, accumulated 278.80 points to win the boys title over a trio of Dolphins. Gabriel Atkinson-Mann was second with a score of 272.45, Charles Shortt (258.50) was third and Anthony Navarrete (251.50) was fourth.

“I was worried at first but as I did more dives I saw I had a chance at first or second,” Rosales-Cristales said. “I want to come back next year.”

By STEVE GALLUZZO | Sports Editor

At noon last Wednesday, Athletic Director Rocky Montz announced that Jeff Bryant has been hired as the boys head basketball coach at Palisades High. On Tuesday he was on campus to meet the players and he could hardly contain his enthusiasm.

“This is the best job in the City Section—the tradition, the alumni, the history, it seemed like the right fit. Pali hasn’t won a league title in what, 50 years?”

Bryant resigned March 1 as basketball coach at West Ranch High in Santa Clarita after four and a half seasons in which his teams posted a 45-1 mark in Foothill League play, including three league titles, and a CIF Southern Section Open Division playoff berth in 2023. Bryant started off as an assistant at West Ranch in 2017 and took over the varsity reins during the 2019-20 season.

Among Bryant’s former players who went on to play at Division I college programs are James Evans (UNLV), Andrew Meadow (Boise State), Jaqari Miles (Montana State) and Jazz Gardner (Nevada).

“I had several quality [assistant] offers, but I want to be a head coach,” Bryant said. “It’s hard to be a lieutenant when you’ve been a general.”

Bryant was among several candidates who interviewed for the position and he becomes the sixth head coach in program history, replacing Dolphins alum and girls assistant LeBre Merritt, who served as the boys interim coach in 2023-24 after Donzell Hayes and his staff were asked to step away from the team one day before the season opener following a tumultuous summer during which nine high-profile players transferred to Palisades in a period of six weeks, fueling questions about illegal offseason contact.

The City Section conducted an investigation and by the time last season started all but three transfers had been denied eligibility or left campus. Another senior quit after the season began.

“First priority is fighting for the right culture,” Bryant said. “If you have it winning will happen.”

By STEVE GALLUZZO | Sports Editor

Having received the No. 5 seed in the City Open Division boys volleyball playoffs, Palisades did not get to begin the postseason in its own gym. Instead, the Dolphins traveled north on the 405 to Granada Hills to try to take down the No. 4 Highlanders, who finished third in the West Valley League behind defending City champion Chatsworth and El Camino Real. The Dolphins used the slight as fuel in a 25-17, 28-26, 30-28 quarterfinal sweep.

“We felt disrespected with the No. 5 seed,” senior outside hitter Pierce Bergstein said. “We should’ve been higher and this result proves that. Knowing this could’ve been our last game definitely lit a fire under us!”

Bergstein’s emphatic kill gave Palisades a set point in the second set and a crosscourt spike by Enzo Torres gave the Western League champions a two sets to none lead.

The Dolphins went up 21-14 in the third set, looking to close out the match qucikly, but the Highlanders chipped away point by point and eventually nudged ahead 24-23. A joust at the net went Palisades’ way and Bergstein’s kill gave his team a match point that was erased by a serve long. Finally, on the third match point, the Highlanders werecalled for a double touch and junior libero Sean Wahlig could breathe a sight of relief knowing there would be practice the next day.

“I wasn’t concerned because a seed is just a number—it’s still the same amount of games to win the championship. We had really good practices leading up to this and we brought what we worked on to the court.”

Closing out matches is something Palisades struggled with throughout the season so being able to finish off the Highlanders was a confidence boost for Bergstein.

“In so many of those situations we’ve lost this year but we learned we can’t drop our energy when we get ahead,” he said. “We just had our three best practices of the season. We put ouselves in this predicament so there’s no more messing around.”

Palisades’ reward was a semifinal showdown Tuesday at No. 1-seeded Chatsworth, which split two meetings with Palisades this season, losing a tight best-of-three match at the Venice Invitational and humbling the Dolphins in straight sets in the rematch at its own tournament. The Chancellors lost in four sets to Palisades in the City finals in 2022 but got revenge with a finals sweep last spring at Cal State Northridge.

“This is a chance for us to beat the top seed before the finals,” Wahlig said. “We’re looking forward to it.”

If victorious, the Dolphins will play Eagle Rock or ECR for the title Saturday at 6 p.m. at CSUN.

The UCLA men’s volleyball team claimed its 21st national title Saturday at The Pyramid and Palisadian Cooper Robinson was an unstoppable force for the Bruins, pounding 12 kills, serving an ace and getting three block assists in a 25-21, 25-20, 27-29, 25-21 victory over host Long Beach State.

Robinson, a 6-7 outside hitter, was a prep standout at Loyola High before coming to Westwood. The resdshirt sophomore has been part of back-to-back NCAA title teams and was a second team All-MPSF selection this season. Also on the roster is another Loyola product, freshman middle Spencer Graves, but he did not see action this year.