Daily Journal Girls’ Swimmer of the Year: San Mateo’s Parker Del Balso

A return to normalcy in 2022 was going swimmingly until the now infamous San Mateo High School prom. Held Saturday, April 9, it turned into a superspreader event with 90 of the 600 students in attendance testing positive for COVID in the days to follow. Del Balso was one of those students, with the prom held exactly three weeks prior to the Peninsula Athletic League swimming championships.

“We didn’t know if she was going to be able to swim at PALs,” San Mateo head coach Kathy Parodi said.

Not only did Del Balso swim at the PAL championships, she thrived throughout the postseason. The junior didn’t return to the pool for nearly two weeks after her positive test. Once she got back in the water, she had one week to prep for PALs.

“It definitely tampered with my confidence a little bit,” Del Balso said, “because before that, I had definitely noticed a lot of improvements in practice. So, I was definitely excited for the postseason. Then having such a long break was really stressful for me.”

Del Balso said she wasn’t at her best at the PAL championships, held Saturday, April 30, at Menlo-Atherton. That’s a scary thought, seeing as she earned PAL Swimmer of the Meet honors for topping the podium in four events, taking first place individually in the 500-yard girls’ freestyle — with a program record of 4 minutes, 58.13 seconds — and the 100 backstroke, and teaming for two more wins in the 200 medley relay and the 400 free relay.

“I think at PALs I did better than expected,” Del Balso said. “So that made me confident that I could do even better at CCS and possibly get to states.”

The true mark of how she beat COVID came in those CCS and CIF state championship meets.

Still working to get back to full strength, Del Balso competed in all four events at the CCS meet. San Mateo didn’t reach the podium in either of its two relay events, but the Bearcats celebrated all the same, winning the B final in the 400 free relay as Del Balso, Hayden Cutler, Claire Kuziemko and Rebecca Buss swam a program record 3:37.54, topping the previous mark set in 1993.

And after Del Balso took fifth in the 200 free in 1:52.12, she realized her dream of winning a CCS championship by topping the podium in the 100 back in 55.07, qualifying for the state championship trials in the process — though the workload, after missing that week of training in April, took its toll.

“I was definitely tired,” Del Balso said. “I didn’t even have Sunday off after the meet.”

Her immediate return to the water was deliberate. As a member at Burlingame Aquatic Club, her private coach Ben Chung designed a rigorous week as a leadup to the state championships. After missing the two previous seasons at San Mateo, Del Balso got one of them back, so to speak, when Chung set forth what he dubbed a “mini-season,” in which Del Balso swam Sunday, put in a double day Monday and began tapering toward her competitive peak Wednesday.

“Oddly enough if kind of worked,” Del Balso said. “It was definitely tiring but it worked out and I felt really ready for states.”

The work comes naturally to Del Balso though. A native of San Jose, she has lived in Foster City since her family moved there when she was 7. By that time, she was already a water baby who raced competitively.

“She loves swimming,” Parodi said. “It is in her soul. She breathes swimming. She is in the water all the time.”

And just being around the pool brings out the best in Del Balso. Competing in the CIF Swimming & Diving Championships at Clovis High School was always the goal. And even though she didn’t qualify for the 200 back finals, her time of 1:51.93 in the prelims broke the program record set by 2018 Daily Journal Girls’ Swimmer of the Year Emma Lepisova in 2018.

“I thought it was a really exciting meet,” Del Balso said. “Just the venue and being able to watch really, really fast swims just got me super excited for the 200 backstroke and the 100 backstroke finals specifically. So, I think that really contributed to my times.”

Del Balso did qualify for the finals in the 100 back. In the preliminaries, the junior hit the wall for a time of 55.05. She went on to reach the podium in the finals, breaking Lepisova’s program record set in 2019 by claiming third place with a time of 54.15.

“It’s always great to have your name on the record board,” Del Balso said. “I would say I do think records are sort of temporary. Of course, I think they will be beaten at some point and, long term, I can’t wait to hear from [Parodi] that another swimmer has beat my records someday.”

The 100 back time was also an automatic All-American mark. It was the 33rd best time in the nation this season and qualified her for the Summer National Championships opening Aug. 1 in Irvine.

Set to return next season as a senior, Del Balso isn’t done making her mark at San Mateo — while she still wrestles with the feeling of wanting to make up for lost time.

Said Parodi: “Yeah, she definitely has a little fire in her belly because she had missed the season both her freshman and sophomore year.”