Athletes of the Week: San Mateo’s Parker Del Balso and El Camino’s Jeremy Tan

Del Balso and Tan are being recognized as Daily Journal Athletes of the Week for their elite performances. That doesn’t mean either of the CCS champs didn’t find ways to be critical of their first-place swims.

“I was struggling a little bit on the last 25 but I really wanted that first place,” said Del Balso, who led second-place finisher Lindsay Barnes of Prospect the entire way. “And I just kept telling myself: ‘Don’t let anybody take this, you got this.’ And I was able to touch just in time.”

For Tan, he hit the water and was soon hitting the lane barriers, an uncharacteristic mechanical flaw in his otherwise standout backstroke.

“I thought it was a stroke of luck that I was able to get first in the 100 back seeing as I had mistakes that were clearly detrimental to my race,” Tan said. “But I was able to push through.”

Make no mistake, though. Del Balso and Tan are both at the top of their respective games.

Del Balso was coming off a perfect docket in the Peninsula Athletic League swimming championships the week previous, taking four individual titles — the 100 back, the 500 free, the 200 medley relay and the 400 free relay.

The junior qualified for the finals in all four events at the CCS championships, and teamed with Hayden Cutler, Rebecca Buss and Claire Kuziemko — all juniors as well — to win the “B” finals in the 400 free relay Saturday.

“Pretty exhausted for sure,” Del Balso said. “But I definitely had to just cool down a lot since I have a whole other meet next weekend.”

Del Balso is one of three BAC swimmers heading to the California Interscholastic Federation swimming championships, opening Friday at Clovis West High School. Tan also earned an automatic bid to the state tournament, while Aragon junior Delainey Brandt earned a consideration cut after taking eight place in the girls’ 100 breaststroke.

“At the beginning of the season the message and the mood was it would be our first year going to CCS,” Del Balso said. “And my goal was just to get into states.”

For Tan, Saturday’s championship swim was the culmination of a banner era in El Camino swimming. This season, Tan earned PAL records in the 100 back (50.85) and the 100 butterfly (50.60). El Camino now owns five PAL boys’ swimming records, with his older brother Nicholas setting the 200 individual medley mark in 2018, and his former relay teammate Nathaniel Macapagal setting records in the boys’ 50 and 100 free in 2019.

El Camino doesn’t exactly have a rich tapestry of swimming tradition. This was on full display at the CCS championships, where some boys’ teams had more CCS qualifiers than El Camino has on its entire 10-man roster.

“Our team is just a small select few but somehow we’re getting quality over quantity,” Tan said.

Tan’s speed in the pool is usually a reliable equalizer but Saturday’s championship heat saw the senior swimming from behind for the first three laps against a much taller opponent, junior Evan Gold of Gunn.

“I was kicking as hard as I could,” Tan said.

The 5-10 Tan finally caught Gold with 25 yards to go. He topped Gold by 0.13 seconds.

“It was a like a millisecond between the first-place finish,” Tan said. “I was racing a guy that was like a half a foot taller than me. … I knew throughout the turns that he was slightly ahead, and it wasn’t until the last lap that I really pushed to out-touch him.”