Honor roll: The week’s best performances by San Mateo County high school athletes

Audrey J-Cheng and Kaia Li, Sacred Heart Prep girls’ swimming. J-Cheng, a junior, and Li, a senior, both had a pair of third-place finishes at the state swimming and diving meet in Clovis over the weekend. J-Cheng finished third in the 100 breaststroke and Li was third in the 200 individual medley. The two then joined Katelyn Chan and Brienz Lang to finish third in the 200 medley relay.

Chloe Leung, Menlo-Atherton girls’ diving. The senior had a top-10 finish at the state diving championship, finishing seventh with a total score of 454.85. She finished second at the CCS championships the previous weekend with a score of 488.40.

Sam Higaki, Aragon boys’ golf. The junior had the best score of all San Mateo County golfers at CCS qualifying with his round of 1-over 72. His round was the fourth best among the two regional qualifying rounds at Laguna Seca Golf Ranch. The CCS championship round is Tuesday at the same location.

Soren Sutaria and Menlo School boys’ tennis team. Suturia and the top-seeded Knights, who had cruised into the CCS team finals without dropping a game, found themselves in a fight against No. 2 Cupertino in the CCS championship match at Bay Club Courtside in Los Gatos. But with Sutaria’s 6-2, 6-3 win at No. 4 singles gave the Knights a 4-3 victory and a third CCS title in four years and the 17th overall in program history.

Justin and Landon Pretre, Menlo School boys’ track and field. The brothers Pretre enjoyed quite a showing at the CCS track and field trials Saturday in Gilroy. Justin Pretre, a junior, qualified for the finals in both distance races, posting the fourth-best time in the boys’ 3,200 while enjoying the best run in the 1,600 at 4:14.33. In the 3,200, Landon Pretre, a freshman, recorded the best preliminary time in the field at 9:28.23, setting himself nicely to contend at the CCS finals set for this Saturday, May 21, at Gilroy High School.

Shannon Keighran, St. Francis-Mountain View softball. Keighran does it again. When the Burlingame native was named Daily Journal Athlete of the Week for the week of April 10-16, she enjoyed a near-perfect week at the plate while turning in an exception outing in the circle. Last week, as the Lancers won 11-0 over Sacred Heart Cathedral and 10-1 over St. Ignatius — finishing off the WCAL slate with a 10-0 record and an undisputed league championship — Keighran gave a command performance. Over the two games, the sophomore went 5 for 6 with two doubles and four RBIs at the plate, and in the circle against St. Ignatius she actually was perfect, firing five flawless innings, striking out 10 without allowing a base runner, before the Wildcats finally scratched out a run against the Lancers’ bullpen.

Parker Del Balso, San Mateo girls’ swimming. The junior backstroker, who won the PAL and CCS championships, finished third in her signature event at the state swimming and diving championships. Her time of 54.15 was an automatic All-American qualifying time and more than two seconds faster than her PAL championship time of 56.22 and almost a second faster than her CCS championship time of 55.07.

Jared Mettam, Half Moon Bay baseball. What a display of baseball tools Mettam demonstrated in the seventh inning of the Cougars’ 4-3 win at Sacred Heart Prep last Thursday. Mettam led off the top of the seventh amid a 3-3 tie and showcased his power by drilling a ground-rule double to right-center. He then showed off his legs by stealing third base, before scoring with a crafty base-running play on a groundball to the draw-in infield, taking off for home after the throw was made to first base and scoring with an explosive headfirst slide across the plate. Then in the bottom of the inning, Mettam’s shortstop defense was on display as he robbed SHP’s Nolan Wilbur of a hit with a rangy play over the middle and a strong, off-balance throw to first. It was a statement performance in a win that clinched the PAL Ocean Division title outright for HMB.

Lauren Wu, Design Tech softball. The Dragons clinched the Private School Athletic League championship last Friday, rolling to a 15-0 win over Latino College Prep on the final day of the regular season. The outcome was a foregone conclusion, with Design Tech now having won five straight games against Latino Prep dating back to last season by a cumulative score of 83-0. Even by those standards, Wu recorded a remarkable pitching line. In a three-inning, mercy-rule outcome, Wu worked 2 2/3 innings while recording nine strikeouts, tabbing one more strikeout than outs records. Reliever Alaina Montgomery entered to record the game’s final out, also a strikeout.