2023 CCS Swimming Championships
- May 5, 2023
- Baler Aquatic Center
- Holister, CA
- SCY (25 yards)
- Results
Ethan Harrington lowered his own meet record in the 50-yard freestyle with a 19.57 to lead his Palo Alto squad to a Central Coast Section (CCS) title on Friday.
The Stanford commit took nearly two-tenths off the 19.73 that he clocked at last year’s meet as a junior. Harrington was far from done as he added another meet record in the 100 free. He reached the wall first in 43.53 during the individual event, missing Max Saunders’ CCS record from 2019 by just .01 seconds, before coming back with a blazing 43.24 leadoff on Palo Alto’s 400 free relay to take down the three-year-old record. He was slightly off his best 50 and 100 free times of 19.45 and 42.92, respectively, both from December.
Harrington also anchored Palo Alto’s victorious 200 medley relay team with a 20.04 split. Palo Alto was the only team to surpass 300 total points on the boys’ side of the standings.
Boys’ Team Scores
- Palo Alto – 334
- Gunn – 252
- Sacred Heart – 136
- Homestead – 124
- St. Francis – 119
The other double individual champion from the boys’ side was Palo Alto junior Arthur Balva, who triumphed in both the 200 IM (1:48.81) and 100 fly (48.16). The Princeton commit was about a second off his best time in the 200 IM (1:47.58) and just four tenths off his lifetime best in the 100 fly (47.76), both of which he posted in December. Balva also led off Palo Alto’s winning 200 medley relay team with a 23.59 backstroke split.
Henry Gibbs was also a key contributor to Palo Alto’s team title, picking up an individual win in the 500 free (4:28.83) while also splitting 22.24 on the fly leg of the victorious 200 medley relay and 46.06 to anchor the winning 400 free relay. The junior Georgia Institute of Technology commit added a fourth-place finish in a tight 200 free race (1:39.89) in which the top four finishers were separated by less than a second. Gibbs dropped more than two seconds off his previous best in the 500 free from last March and over a second off his previous best in the 200 free from April.
Sacred Heart Prep had a couple of individual winners courtesy of Cole Ballard in the 200 free (1:39.20) and Jonah Lee in the 100 breast (54.19). Ballard, a USC commit, dropped more than two seconds off his previous-best time from December. Lee, a UCSB commit, shaved over half a second off his previous-best from December.
A freshman, Woodside’s Seth Collet, topped the podium in the 100 back with a 49.31, marking his first time sub-50 seconds in the event.
Girls Recap
St. Ignatius didn’t boast any individual champions, but the team’s depth fueled a pair of wins in the 200 medley relay and 400 freestyle relay that created more than 100 points of separation from runner-up Los Gatos.
In the 200 medley relay, freshman Amanda Vu (26.89), junior Ava Domingo (26.64), junior Jordan Ash (24.64), and junior Marlee Repp (23.65) combined for St. Ignatius’ winning time of 1:45.22, just over a second ahead of Palo Alto. Ash (51.79) teamed up with sophomore Elizabeth Burkhardt (52.20), senior Lian Jeong Engle (52.51), and junior Caitlin Quill (51.95) in the 400 free relay to touch first in 3:28.45, more than a second ahead of Los Gatos.
The two most impressive individual standouts on the girls’ side were both underclassmen. Saratoga freshman Kelsey Zhang won the 100 fly (52.62) and 200 IM (1:59.03), the latter representing a best time by a good chunk. She went sub-2:00 for the first time in the 200 IM during prelims with a 1:59.78 before lowering that mark by almost another second in the final.
Woodside sophomore Audrey Chung swam personal-best times in both the 50 free (23.40) and 100 free (50.52) en route to first-place finishes in both events. Chung dropped nearly a full second in the 100 free and .15 seconds in the 50 free.
Other individual winners on the girls’ side include Los Gatos junior Karly Frangieh in the 200 free (1:49.88), Soquel senior Tenaya Winter in the 500 free (4:57.83), San Mateo senior Parker Del Balso in the 100 back (55.33), and Sacred Heart senior Audrey J-Cheng in the 100 breast (1:01.31).
Girls’ Team Scores
- St. Ignatius – 270.50
- Los Gatos – 154
- Palo Alto – 144
- Castilleja – 128
- St. Francis – 127.50