By STEVE GALLUZZO  | Sports Editor

When Lorenzo Brunkow decided to join the Palisades High boys tennis team this season he wanted nothing more than to help the Dolphins keep their record City title streak intact.

Thanks in large part to Brunkow’s four points at the No. 1 singles spot, Palisades defeated Granada Hills 20 to 9.5 in the Open Division final last Wednesday at Balboa Sports Center in Encino to claim its 40th section title and 15th in a row—the longest active championship reign by any team in any sport in the City.

“The trips with the team were fun and it helps to see a little of what the college environment will be like,” Brunkow said after sweeping his four sets, 6-2, 6-0, 6-0, 6-0. “It was important to continue our coach’s legacy and keep the streak going. That was the goal when the season began.”

An early commit to UCSB, where his brother Gianluca is a junior on the Gauchos’ men’s squad, Brunkow reached the finals of the CIF singles division at Ojai four days prior. The 11th-grader also established himself as the favorite to win the City Individual tournament after defeating Granada Hills sophomore Kristian Sharma 6-2 in the first rotation. Reigning City singles champ Neel Joshi won his three sets, 6-1, 6-0, 6-0, but was subbed out before facing Sharma. Playing No. 3 singles, Luc Jesuele beat the Highlanders’ No. 4 player Advait Kamal 6-0 and Owen Chin Rust also beat Kamal, 6-1, before reserves Tristan Kiperman and Rocco Weinberg each won a set to give the top-seeded Dolphins 10 out of a possible 16 points in singles.

“He played the exact same lineup I would’ve if I were him,” Pali High coach Bud Kling said of his counterpart Troy Aiken. “Unfortunately, his singles players didn’t come through the way he hoped they would.”

Already the winningest coach in section history, Kling added his 31st boys title to his collection. Add to that the 21 he has won with the girls and he has a total of 52 since taking over the boys program in 1979 and the girls in 1985.

“It’s always a pleasure you—it’s exciting tennis and we look forward to it every year,” Kling said to the Highlanders before handing out first-place medals to his players. “I’m sure we’ll see you guys again in 12 months.”

Palisades and Granada Hills have met in nine straight finals—three in Division I and the last six in the Open Division—and 10 times total in the Dolphins’ current dynasty, which started with a 26.5 to 3 over the Highlanders in 2009.

Granada Hills has yet to won a City boys title.

The Dolphins ensured that the Highlanders’ drought would continue by taking six of the nine doubles sets (each worth one and half points). Palisades’ No. 1 tandem of Caleb Scott and Max May lost head-to-head to the Highlanders’ top pair of Aydan Fatu and Aiden Moufarrege but rebounded to win their last two sets, 6-2, 6-1. Zach Cohen and Teddy Brainard beat Granada Hills’ No. 3 pair 6-0 and the No. 3 team of Liam Findley and Eli Konecke won two sets, including a tiebreak victory over Fatu and Moufarrege.

Once his team surpassed the 15 points needed for victory, Kling began replacing his starters. Dash Hansford and Jeff Ren secured the last doubles point with a 6-0 victory.

By STEVE GALLUZZO | Sports Editor

Entering the last event, Palisades High’s girls team was leading the City Section swim championships by six points, but head coach Maggie Nance knew that her team needed to finish strong to gain at least a share of the title. Fortunately, the Dolphins rose to the challenge and took second in the 400 freestyle relay to tie Granada Hills with 371.5 points thanks to the heroics of freshman Alexis Burrell. She trailed Venice sophomore Lily Wu, in the lane next to her, by almost two seconds at the start of her anchor leg, but gained ground with every stroke and edged her Gondos adversary by 59 hundredths of a second to ensure that her team would not leave the Valley College pool empty handed on Saturday.

Granada Hills won in 3:41.27 to earn 40 first-place points, but Palisades’ foursome of Sabrina Kim, Noa Levetrov, Bailey Gair and Burrell clocked 3:44.83 to pick up the 34 points they needed to create the girls’ first tie in finals history. The only other time two teams finished deadlocked was in 1974 when Palisades and Chatsworth tied for the boys team crown.

“I knew we had to get second and on my second 50 I went as fast as I could and started catching her,” said Burrell, who clocked a personal-best 1:56.60 to win the 200 freestyle, then won the 500 freestyle by almost five seconds earlier in the meet. “The last 25 I gave it everything I had. Yeah, I was tired but the adrenaline kicked in and took over the pain.”

Alexis and her twin sister Claire, who went to Paul Revere Middle School and live in Brentwood, were welcome and surprise additions to the squad this spring.

“I don’t recruit but I’m super excited to have the sisters,” said Nance, who watched the boys and girls teams both finish second last year. “Alexis is fierce! She closed a second anad a half faster than she’s ever gone in the relay.”

Venice, Granada Hills and Palisades went 1-2-3 in the first event, the girls’ 200 medley relay and the Dolphins’ 200 freestyle relay of Mika Mertzel, Emma Canter, Genessis Zuniga and Levertov was fourth in 1:49.42. Nance made sure her swimmers knew what was at stake before the last relay.

“I didn’t know until after the breaststroke finished but after the 200 free I did the math and saw that Granada Hills was closing. Venice was favored and if they’d won we would’ve been first outright but Granada Hills winning forced us to have to get second. So I told the girls if they [Granada Hills] get second you can get third and you’ll win. There just can’t bea gap of more than one spot.”

Granada Hills’ boys also won the 400 Freestyle Relay en route to their first team title since 2001. Palisades was the runner-up for the second straight year with 358 points. The girls added to their record total with their 31st City title and 15th udner Nance, who took the helm of her alma mater in 2004. Since then, she has also coached the boys to nine titles, giving her 24 overall.

“It’s nice to be back on top,” she said. “The culture of the team is really good and that makes it fun to coach them. We have so many young swimmers so we should be strong again next year.”

Riley Amis was second in the boys 100 freestyle in 49.45. Owen Grant, who led the boys’ water polo team to its 11th straight City title in the fall, was fourth in the 50 free in 22.77 and the 200 medley relay of Gabe Atkinson-Mann, Amis, Avery Grant and Roi Levertov was third.

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.”