The Pioneer
SPORTS & LIFESTYLE August 18, 2023
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The Pioneer, Section B
Dana Hills earns threepeat county swim championship defending their team title. She noted the 7-8 girls free relay of Brooklyn Wahrlich, Cora White, Meritt Pak and Charley Branich both girls 15-18 relays and the 15-18 boys medley and free relays of Van Fanos, Parker, Vines and Canada. All four of the 15-18 boys aged out after the meet. Chooch Banich was high point in girls six and under and her sister Charley Branich was second in 7-8 girls for Dana Hills. Seib of Pleasant Hill Dolfins was again the 15-18 high point girl while Conor Halley-McCarty of Pleasant Hill Aquatics was second and Tommy Martin of Ygnacio Wood third in 15-18 boys.
JAY BEDECARRÉ The Pioneer
Dana Hills Swim Team of Clayton swam to its third consecutive Contra Costa County championship this month while Gehringer Park took its third Concord City Meet B Division title in four tries at the end of July in the two seasonending meets for recreation swimming. Dana Hills has won the last three Division I County Meet championships in highly contested battles with runner-up Rancho San Miguel of Walnut Creek. The two teams finished 1-2 for the third successive time. The County Meet was two weeks after the Concord Swimming Championships where the Otters won the A title for the 30th time in the last 31 City Meets. Gehringer Park won the city B Division for the third time in four meets after taking second place in 2022. CITY MEET AWARDS Dana Hills had seven of the 12 high point A Division award winners. Sisters Chooch Branich (6 and under), Charley Branich (7-8) and Cole Branich (9-10) won top girls honors while Rory Lynch (6 and under), JJ Westerbrook (1112), Rhys Delaney (13-14) and Shawn Canada (15-18) were boys winners for the Otters. The other high point girls were Samanatha Mayrena (1112) and Alexis Steffensen (13-
Photo courtesy Dana Hills Swim Team
Dana Hills Swim Team won its third successive Contra Costa County championship this month at Acalanes High in Lafayette after winning its 30th Concord City Meet A Division title in 31 years two weeks earlier.
14) from Forest Park and Airi Seib (15-18) for the Pleasant Hill Dolfins. Maclaine Grisafi (7-8) of Gehringer Park and Robert Griffith (9-10) of Oakhurst rounded out the boys winners. Both of the outstanding relays were from Dana Hills. The 15-18 girls medley relay of Zoe Lahanas, Maya Canada, Gianna Kougios and Abigail Adent sent a new record, as did the 15-18 freestyle DHST boys of Damik Von Fanos, Dominic Vines, Jack Parker and Shawn Canada. Other meet records were set in the 15-18 100 breast with Maya Canada breaking her own record from 2022 and the
DHST 15-18 girls set a new free relay mark with Kougios, Adent, Lahanas and Mandy Meyers. Dana Hills had its usual dominance in the relays with seven free and 10 medley relay championships. Gehringer Park won the coveted team sportsmanship award. OTTERS ATOP THE COUNTY AGAIN Dana Hills head coach Nikki Palmer talked about the competitive County Meet as her team rallied to take its third title in a row. “We knew going in if we could stay within 100 points of Rancho San Miguel
(primarily a breaststroke heavy team) after Day 1, winning again would be within reach. We are a very backstroke/butterfly heavy team and had great depth in our relays, which helped us pull ahead by Sunday afternoon.” Because there was a twoweek gap between city and county meets, Dana Hills was missing a few swimmers who were on family vacations or leaving for school. “We were down a few swimmers going in for county weekend, however we tried to keep the focus the same—‘last one, fast one.’ You could tell by the break Sunday just based on the energy that we
had it. It was an awesome way to finish our season, and I am so proud of every single county swimmer on that team, as it was a team effort. We truly could not have done it without every single relay swimmer.” Final scoring had Dana Hills with 1870 points and Rancho San Miguel 1665.5. Pleasant Hill Aquatics was 10th in Division I. Ygnacio Wood was seventh, Gehringer Park 15th and Pleasant Hill Dolfins 16th in Division II. Springwood, which won Division III a year ago, was fourth this time around. Palmer lauded her team’s relay depth as a key factor in
CITY MEET TEAM SCORES A Division: Dana Hills Otters 1162 points, Ygnacio Wood Seahorses 582, Gehringer Park Gators 440, Forest Hills Beavers 383.5, Pleasant Hill Dolfins 375.5, Oakhurst Orcas 231, Forest Park Flyers 188, Springwood Sprinters 164, Walnut Country Stingrays 141.5, Crockett Crockett-iles 131.5, Bishop Estates Cudas 73, Vista Diablo Dolphins 34. B Division: Gehringer Park 334, Dana Hills 286, Pleasant Hill Dolfins 271.5, Ygnacio Wood 239, Springwood 187, Oakhurst 173.5, Forest Hills 169, Forest Park 137, Bishop Estates 122, Walnut Country 115, Crockett 99, Vista Diablo 47.
Football teams kicking off next weekend with new challenges JAY BEDECARRÉ The Pioneer
High school football’s non-league schedule begins next Friday with three local schools led by new head coaches—College Park (Casey Moreno), Mt. Diablo (Fetuao Mua) and Clayton Valley Charter (Nick Tisa). Five of the seven local high schools made it to the North Coast Section playoffs last fall and will be seeking returns to the post season. As usual, De La Salle will garner the largest spotlight as coach Justin Alumbaugh’s Spartans look to win their 31st successive North Coast Section championship and get Photo courtesy Clayton Valley Charter back to contending for a CIF Micah Avery (3) figures to carry a big load of the offense for State Bowl game title, someClayton Valley Charter this fall after scoring 12 touchdowns thing that has eluded the Conlast year. Coach Nick Tisa will be relying on veteran players cord school since 2015. Last year’s team fell to Linlike Avery as he takes over the Ugly Eagles coaching reins.
coln of San Diego in the State 1-AA Bowl 33-28, a fifth straight loss in a state championship game. That Spartan team lost an unprecedented four games but also fielded an unusually large number of underclassmen who got plenty of playing time. DLS also had some changes to its coaching staff including long-time assistant Terry Eidson returning this fall. Clayton Valley Charter will take the field without Tim Murphy calling the plays for first time since 2012. Due to the upcoming 2024-28 NCS realignment, this will be the Ugly Eagles last season in the East Bay Athletic League before they return to the Diablo Athletic League. CVCHS does have the advantage over the other schools with new coaches since Tisa has been on the
staff for several years and is very familiar with all aspects of the program and the players. Both the EBAL and DAL have adjusted their divisions as they continue to seek competitive equity among their members. In the DAL, College Park, which won the 2022 Valley Division with an unbeaten 5-0 league record, has been moved up to the Foothill Division. That was the Falcons first outright league title in 11 years, but the season ended in multiple controversies. Both head coach Travis Raciti and athletic director Jim Keck subsequently left their positions. Moreno’s team will have the added challenge of being placed in the competitive DAL Foothill Division. Because that switch creates uneven divisions with seven
schools in the DAL Foothill and five in the Valley there are three interleague games scheduled during the season to minimize bye weeks for league teams. For the Valley Division it also means there is only one league game in Weeks 5 and 10. Concord coach Paul Reynaud and Northgate’s Ben Ballard want to get their teams into NCS again. Concord is in the DAL Valley Division and Northgate in the Foothill. Mt. Diablo missed out on NCS last fall. New coach Mua reportedly had some transfer student athletes last semester move to the Concord school. Ygnacio Valley has not won a game since late in the 2019 season and coach Rae Jackson Sr. hopes to turn that around this fall.
See Football, page B2
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