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In what was nothing less than a banner weekend, the East Bay Athletic League came home with five individual titles in the CIF State Swimming and Diving Championships.
Luka Mijatovic of Foothill and Tim Wu from Dougherty Valley each won a pair of titles on the boys’ side, while Brooke Bennett of Granada brought home a win for the EBAL girls.
The league was well-represented in the finals, bringing home a load of medals.
Mijatovic, who won the 500 freestyle last year as a freshman, headed into the weekend as the must-see swimmer — and did not disappoint the swim community.
He started his Saturday off by winning the 200 free, an event he finished runner-up by less than a second last year. His time of 1:33.52 set a new CIF State Meet record.
In the 500 where he was the defending champion, he made it two straight with a 4:11.91, a new National High School record, as well as another State Meet record.
He capped his day by swimming the anchor leg of the 400 free relay for Foothill, taking the Falcons from seventh when he hit the water to third place with a sizzling swim.
Wu, the training partner and a good friend of Mijatovic, started his day with a new State Meet record in the 200 individual medley, going 1:44.55.
Wu, a junior, came back later in the day and won the 100 backstroke, clocking a 47.20 for his second title.
Bennett, also a junior, led an EBAL contingent in the girls’ 500 free, taking the title with a 4:49.15. Lillyana Caples of Amador Valley was fifth in 4:54.56, and Rylee Hutchinson, a sophomore from Amador, was ninth 4:59.18.
Here are the full highlights for the EBAL swimmers:
Girls
200 medley relay: 2) San Ramon Valley 1:44.15.
200IM: 6) Brooke Bennett (Gra) 2:01.5; 8) Raya Mellott (SRV) 2:01.82.
100 butterfly: 8) Ella Busquets (MV) 55.48.
500 free: 1) Brooke Bennett (Gra) 4:49.15; 5) Lillyana Caples (AV) 4:54.56; 9) Rylee Hutchinson (AV) 4:59.18.
200 free relay: 9) San Ramon Valley 1:36.18.
100 back: 3) Ella Busquets (MV) 53.66; 5) Daniela Linares Danzos (SRV).
100 breaststroke: 4) Raya Mellott (SRV) 1:02.35.
400 free relay: 3) Monte Vista 3:25.24; 4) San Ramon Valley 3:25.27; 9) Carondelet 3:34.7.
Boys
200 free: 1) Luka Mijatovic (Foot) 1:33.52 New CIF State Meet record.
200IM: 1) Tim Wu (DV) 1:44.55 New CIF State Meet record; 5) Isaiah Silver (Gra) 1:50.08.
500 free: 1) Luke Mijatovic (Foot) 4:11.91, New NFHS record, New CIF State Meet record. 7) Ethan Wang (Foot) 4:47.74.
200 free relay: 2) De La Salle 1:22.49.
100 back: 1) Tim Wu (DV) 47.20.
400 free relay: Foothill 3:02.10.
NCS Tri-Valley Track/Field
The North Coast Section Tri-Valley Meet took place on Saturday at Clayton Valley High, qualifying athletes for the NCS Meet of Champions this weekend.
The meet takes place at Dublin High and will qualify the top three in each event, as well as anyone that achieves CIF at-large standards for the CIF State meet.
In the Tri-Valley meet, Ava Padilla – a freshman at Monte Vista – led the way on the girls’ side, winning a pair of events.
In the boys’ meet Arrin Sagiraju of Dougherty Valley won a pair of events, and Kaleb Pleis of San Ramon Valley broke a 52-year-old school record in the long jump.
Here are the EBAL athletes that won events at the Tri-Valley Meet:
Girls
Top 5 teams: Monte Vista 66, Dublin 58, Pittsburg 54, Clayton Valley 50, Carondelet 45.
1,600: Ava Padilla (MV) 5:02.51.
100H: Tatum Trucks (Caron) 15.00.
800: Ava Padilla (MV) 2:14.21.
HJ: Riley McMullen (SRV) 5-6.
PV: Miranda Howeth (Dub) 10-11.
Boys
Top 5 teams: De La Salle 108, Pittsburg 56, Dublin 51, Clayton Valley 42, Acalanes 30.
4×100: De La Salle 41.45.
1,600: Arrin Sagiraju (DV) 4:19.69.
110HH: Chase Young (DLS) 14.92.
100: Jaden Jefferson (DLS) 10.39.
800: Arrin Sagiraju (DV) 1:56.36.
300H: Edward Boeschenstein (Foot) 38.46.
3,200: Trey Caldwell (DLS) 9:08.71.
4×400: Dublin 3:22.92.
LJ: Kaleb Pleis (SRV) 22-8.25.
TJ: Anthony Dean (DLS) 48-4.75.
NCS Baseball shenanigans
The NCS seeds and divisions came out Sunday afternoon and has just about always been the case, these are always announced with some questions, and of course, some huh’s?
No exception this year.
Division I
No question about the No. 1 seed as returning NCS and NorCal champion Granada returns a load of talent and will host No. 16 San Ramon Valley. (All games 5 p.m. May 20.)
De La Salle is the second seed and plays host to Pittsburg. Dublin at the eight seed plays host to No. 9 Casa Grande. College Park earned the No. 5 seed and will host No. 12 Heritage.
Here is where the fun starts. Foothill is the No. 3 seed but is at No. 14 Liberty. NCS has long had this much debated rule about the winner of a league title should host at least one home game.
My question: If you’re not going to play true to the seeds, then why seed? Home field can be a big advantage, and it seems to make perfect sense that if you are thought to be a good enough team to earn a three seed, then you should not be punished, while a team that wins a decidedly weaker league should not be rewarded like this. They got in the tournament –- that’s reward enough.
Oh, there’s others. No. 7 Petaluma has to play at No. 10 Castro Valley, and No. 6 Benicia has a road game at No. 11 Redwood.
Let’s just throw all 16 teams in a hat and draw them out randomly. It makes about as much sense.
This is a point I have been fighting for 20-plus years and nothing changes. I mean if it’s broken, why fix it seems to be the mentality. The higher seeded teams sent on the road will not even get the benefit of playing in front of the majority of their fans.
It seems like banging my head against a wall is in order again this year.
D-II
Another discussion point comes into play here.
Do you remember when NCS divisions were decided by the size of the schools? The idea was to keep schools of similar sizes in the same division in the interests of fairness.
Here is D-II Amador Valley, a school of 2,574 students, is the No. 8 seed and will host No. 9 McKinleyville, a school of 549 students.
All the attendance statistics come from www.publicschoolreview.com.
Regarding D-I teams, Amador has more students than Foothill (2,208), Granada (2,234), Windsor (1,638), Clayton Valley (2,390), College Park (1,997), Petaluma (1,253), Benicia, and Redwood (1,785).
That’s a large difference — seemingly going against NCS stood for when it was balanced divisions.
And it’s not fair to the Dons as well.
If you play a school you are five times bigger than, you better win. That is a no-win situation. You win and you were supposed to, lose and it’s a major story.
I understand teams can petition up but there must be some common sense here. The way it works now is sections move teams around so they can have better chances in NorCal tournaments and in some cases, state tournaments.
Livermore is seeded seventh and plays host to No. 10 Alhambra here.
D-III
It continues here with California High the top seed and sports an enrollment 2,869. The host No 16 San Leandro (2,488 students. The winner faces the winner of Washington (1,900 students) and Eureka (1,226 students).
Other D-III teams include Kelseyville (573 students) and Del Norte (1,226 students).
It just makes no sense, but maybe I am the only one that feels this way. Baseball is far from the only sport where this happens. It’s gotten this way in football, and it has allowed NCS teams to go further in the playoffs.
Southern California has been trampling on the rule book for some time and instead of trying to fix the problem, everyone has just decided to do the same as the other parts of the state.
Editor’s note: Dennis Miller is a contributing sports writer for the Pleasanton Weekly. This column originally appeared in Tri-Valley Preps Playbook, a weekly sports e-newsletter published by Embarcadero Media Foundation.
