Swim Teams Lap Rival Venice

If last Friday night’s swim meet was a precursor to the Western League finals, Palisades High should feel pretty good about its chances considering that Venice is the Dolphins’ stiffest competition. Palisades swept all four divisions largely because of its superior depth and it is the Dolphins’ sheer numbers that Coach Maggie Nance hopes will equate to another City championship in May for the girls. “On the whole it’s not that we were swimming that fast… we just have incredible depth and talent,” Nance said after watching Palisades’ varsity girls nearly lap the host Gondos by a 101-68 score. “They have Maggie and Andy who are great swimmers, but they can only swim so many events. Our girls took second, third and fourth in every race and all of those points add up.” Nance was proud of the girls’ frosh/soph squad as well after it won by an even more lopsided score, 100-37. Hannah Kogan, who had led that team to first place at the Beverly Hills Invitational the previous week, swam varsity Friday and contributed valuable points, as did the victorious 200 freestyle relay team of Shelby Pascoe, Nicole Dib, Lizzie Ebert and Ana Silka. It is no shock that the Dolphins dominated the girls’ varsity division (Palisades is, after all, the defending City champion), but Nance was pleasantly surprised at how well her boys performed. The varsity won 92-78 and the frosh/sop won 74-53. “We don’t have quite as much depth on the boys side but what we lack in quantity we make up for with quality,” Nance said. “We’re getting better and we’re going to be a force to be reckoned with, if not this season, certainly in years to come.” Palisades also swam well against San Pedro in a Western League meet last Tuesday at Banning High. Monday’s scheduled meet against Hamilton was cancelled. 9A Palisades High junior Shelby Pascoe won the varsity 500 freestyle against Venice at last Friday’s Western League meet. Rich Schmitt/Staff Photographer