Woodside girls’ swimming tops M-A to remain tied atop PAL Bay Division race

Woodside (3-0) earned the showdown with Carlmont after Friday’s victory over longtime powerhouse Menlo-Atherton (1-2). The Wildcats claimed a 93-77 win, though the team has yet to celebrate. That’s because the scoring results were not available Friday. The closely contested final score was not calibrated until Saturday.

“We had no idea,” Woodside head coach Stephanie Couch said. “When you win the event you get more points — right? — so we did win some events with the girls we had but their team is huge … so it’s hard to know if you won.”

Dominance in the freestyle events put Woodside over the top.

Sophomore sprinter Audrey Chung earned a Central Coast Section qualifying time with her first-place swim in the 100 free, posting a time of 54.49 seconds. Freshman Kate Stevenson emerged with two wins, first in the 50 free then again in the 500 free. The latter, with a time of 5 minutes, 46.36 seconds, was something of a surprise as it was Stevenson’s first time swimming the distance event.

“It’s really good time,” Couch said. “I gave her a really big hug for that.”

Couch said the freshman only recently put herself in the distance rotation. A recent Woodside fundraiser had many on the team swimming a mile, and it allowed Couch to assess who the team’s distance swimmers are. Stevenson made a fast impression.

“She did like a 20-minute mile and it was her first time ever swimming it,” Couch said.

It wasn’t until Friday, when Woodside was en route to the dual meet at Carlmont, that Stevenson approached Coach about taking a shot at the 500.

Couch said Stevenson was sitting behind her on the bus when Stevenson posed the question: “’I’ve never swam the 500, how do I swim it?’”

The answer to that question, as it turned out, was — quite consistently.

“Her splits were right on the money,” Couch said.

Chung added a second CCS qualifying time in the 200 individual medley with a first-place time of 2:12.99.

“She is extremely talented,” Couch said. “Whatever she swims, she’ll win. In freestyle especially. But she’s very fast.”

While Chung is of ordinary looking stature, once she’s in the water, she has something of an extraordinary technique, Couch said.

“Extremely long, smooth stroke that looks like Katie Ledecky,” Couch said. “She really does. It’s a really long and beautiful stroke.”

Woodside sophomore Edana Huang earned two individual wins, claiming first place in the 100 fly in 59.20, as well as the 100 breast in 1:09.55 — both CCS qualifying times. Hannah Lalonde took second place in the 100 fly.

M-A won the boys’ dual meet against Woodside 109-61. But Woodside’s Seth Collet enjoyed four wins on the day, including three CCS cuts. He missed the cut in the 200 free, though he won it in 1:50.58.

“I don’t think he went all out because he was going for his CCS backstroke (qualifying time),” Couch said.

That he did, winning the 100 back in 54.79. He also earned CCS cuts with two relay teams, as Woodside took first place in each the 200 medley relay and the 200 free relay.