Vikings Start off League Week with a Dominate Performance in Diving

As Swimming League Week begins for the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League, the Palo Alto Vikings got off to a strong start with a Dominate performance in the diving competition.  This plans to be a very exciting week as Palo Alto will have to swim and dive strong in order to try and defend their titles.  The diving team did just that on Tuesday with a great performance from all of their divers.

For the Lady Vikes, they finished 1, 2, 3 and 9.  This was a great start for the Lady Vikes team and scored some very important points for the team for later in the week.  Senior Emma Miller capped off a great Viking career with a number one finish.  She scored a career high 390.05 points and continued a long tradition of 1st place league finishes for Palo Alto.  Serena Yee finished second, also with a personal best of 381.65, the junior Viking has been showing growth all season and it came together today with a great showing.  Junior Nadia Nee also scored well with 340.40 points, she to has begun to show her leadership with a strong showing.   Sophmore Phoebe So,  moved up to Varsity just two weeks ago, scored a ninth place finish with a score of 288.55.  The Lady Vikes scored 62 out of a possible 68 points. All of these divers also qualified for CCS and will be in action again next week at the CCS Championships at Santa Clara Valley Swim Center.

Not to be out done, the boys Viking squad themselves performed well.  Cole Plambeck won his 3rd consecutive SCVAL diving title with a score of 476.65.  A young squad of divers then came on strong and showed no first time jitters.  Jonathan Kosaka scored a fourth place finish with a score of 274.80, just missing his CCS cut.  Alex Hammer, also just recently moved up to Varsity scored a sixth place finish with a score of 245.15.  And newcomer Cam Yen placed 8th with a score of 234.60.  These dives and points will also be valuable for the team as the week progresses.  Cole will be looking to improve on his score next week at CCS.

For the JV Girls, Julia Ragsdale placed 2nd for the Lady Vikes with a score of 179.80.  Emily Willick placed a close 3rd with a score of 168.90.  Remi Wolf scored a top 8 finish with a score of 147.10 and placing 10th was newcomer Alyssa Takahashi with a score of 135.80.

For the JV Boys, sprinter Will Mendenhall trying to help the team and a new diver scored a 3rd place finish with a score of 150.75.

All of the divers dove exceptionally well today and gave their teams a big boost going into the next two days of prelims at Lynbrook High School.  This will be an exciting week for the SCVAL swimming titles you should come out and root on your Vikings.  The swimming starts at 2:30 pm on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.  Boys Prelims are on Wednesday, Girls Prelims are on Thursday and both swim their finals on Friday.  Good Luck Vikings, swim strong and fast!!!