Post Cup Winners

Lorenzo Brunkow and Anna Song are Pali High’s Outstanding Senior Athletes

By STEVE GALLUZZO | Sports Editor

No two athletes at Palisades High dominated their sports in 2024-25 more than Lorenzo Brunkow and Anna Song, which is why they were presented with the Palisadian-Post Cup Award at the school’s annual Senior Awards Banquet on May 29 at The Barker Hangar in Santa Monica.

A highly-ranked tennis player, Brunkow graduated last week having captured back-to-back City Individual singles crowns (beating his own teammate Neel Joshi to repeat as champion) and in May helped the Dolphins extend their record title streak to 16 in a row. After joining the program in his junior year (he skipped high school tennis as a freshman and sophomore), Brunkow went undefeated against City opponents. He swept his four sets in the team finals in 2024 and dropped two games in three sets before being subbed out in the last rotation this spring.

Last season, Brunkow advanced to the final of the CIF singles draw at the Ojai Tournament (falling to Niels Hoffmann of Corona del Mar) and in April he made the semifinal round at Ojai (losing to the eventual champion Rishvanth Krishna from Irvine University having earned the No. 1 seed). Brunkow was at his best when it mattered most in the Southern California Regionals in Claremont on May 23, winning at No. 1 singles to help the Dolphins upset JSerra 4-3 in the first round, then notching his team’s only point with another triumph at No. 1 singles in the semifinals against Harvard-Westlake. The Topanga resident is headed to UC Santa Barbara, where his older brother Gianluca just wrapped up his senior season on the Gauchos’ tennis squad.

Song won everything there is to win in her four years at Palisades—and set a few records in the process—while establishing herself as one of the best high school girls golfers in the country. She led the Dolphins to four straight City team titles and added three consecutive individual medals (she finished second her freshman year, one shot behind senior teammate Chloe Rahn). In November, Song shot a seven-under-par 65 at Balboa to better the previous section finals scoring record (67) she had shot as a sophomore. Song’s 10-stroke victory was the second-largest margin in finals history and she joined Van Nuys’ Tiffany Yau as the only girls in City annals to capture three individual crowns.

As a junior, Song shot a 68 to repeat as City champion and shot a two-under 69 to take second at the state finals in Pebble Beach. She was fifth in state last fall with an even-par 72 at San Gabriel Country Club.

In addtion to her success at the prep level, the Stanford signee was one of 12 players to represent Team USA at the Junior Solheim Cup against Europe in Benahavis, Spain in the summer of 2023. Song, in fact, was  chosen by team captain Amy Alcott, a 1974 Pali High graduate and five-time LPGA major champion.