Gold, silver, bronze for county divers at CCS championships

As Menlo-Atherton head swim coach Bruce Smith said in an email, “Not bad for a league where not a single school has diving boards.”

Nine girls from the PAL qualified for CCS, with a qualification meet held at Palo Alto and a qualifying score of 330 points necessary to move on.

Thirty-six divers started the day, with six from the PAL — Goh, Kuziemko, M-A’s Ava Jannink and Natalie Liu, and Carlmont’s Camille Ching and Jacqueline Oh — qualifying into the final 16.

Goh entered the finals with 323.10 points and trailed only Leland’s Evangeline Zhao, who was the top qualifier with 328.35 points. But Goh passed her in the finals, beating Zhao by 2.35 points — 455.25 to 452.90. Kuziemko was fifth heading into the finals and vaulted her way up to third, finishing with 437.65 point.

In all, four PAL divers finished in the top six. In addition to Goh and Kuziemko, M-A Jannink was fifth (431.40) and Carlmont’s Ching sixth (424.85).

On the boys’ side, six county divers qualified, with all six finishing in the top 10. Palo Alto’s Gunnar Grubbs was the runaway winner. His point total of 665.25 was well ahead of Menlo’s Lee, who was second with 528.45.

Lee was in second place after the first round and dropped to third, behind Burlingame’s Jack Handelman, heading into the finals. But Lee rallied to grab second.

Man was fourth heading into the final and moved up a spot to grab a a state meet birth with a total of 516.95.

Handelman finished fourth with 513.40, while his teammate, Jack Vaksman, was fifth with 465.20. Serra’s Milo Switzer was ninth with 391.95 points.

BOYS GOLF

Baker’s dozen qualify for CCS championship round

The CCS boys’ golf qualifier was held Tuesday at Laguna Seca Golf Ranch in Monterey and 13 golfers from San Mateo County qualifying for the CCS championship round at the same course next Tuesday.

But the biggest news was not who made the cut, but those that missed it. West Bay Athletic League champ James Lee of Nueva School missed the cut after posting a round of 83 in the afternoon qualifier. That came on the heels of Peninsula Athletic League champion Alejandro Formosa shooting a 75 and missing the cut in the morning.

The biggest qualifying surprises might be Terra Nova’s Leo Buhgiar and Menlo-Atherton’s Graham Martin. The two finished fifth and seventh, respectively, at the PAL championship last week, but both were on fire Tuesday in Monterey. Playing in the morning round, both finished in a tie for seventh with rounds even-par 71.

Carmel’s Jonathan Chen was the morning qualifier leader with a round of 68.

Crystal had three golfers qualify out of the morning group, led Arden Xu, whose round of 1-under 70 was good for a tie for second. Edan Cui tied for seventh at even par and Henry Chen advanced with a 1-over 72, which was a tie for 12th.

Hillsdale, which qualified as a team, did not send any golfer through to the final. Gus Ganesh was the Knights’ top finisher, carding a 3-over 74 and finishing in a tie for 20th.

The Serra team was the only one from the county to qualify for the finals, led by Kyler Heath, who finished in a tie for fifth place with a round of 2-over 73 in the afternoon qualifier. He will be joined by Jacob Vierneza (75, T19), Collin Firestone (76, T23), Blake Baldi (80, T36), Chris Philpott (83, T49) and Jack Hickey (91, T74).

Nueva’s Bruce Ordody qualified for the championship with a 2-over 73 and finishing in a tie for fifth, with Serra’s Heath.

The scores do not carry over to the championship round next week.