
The La Jolla High boys swim team emerged City Conference champions last Friday, while the girls placed a close second to Cathedral Catholic in the annual post-season event. Three La Jolla High school records were broken, including both the boys and girls medley relays and the boys’ 400 free relay. The boys medley relay squad of Hunter Gettelfinger, Alex Polyak, Tyler Woods and Mike Vespremi came in at 1:39.24, and the girls placed second with 1:53.52 (Allie Knight, Tammy Tran, Heren Alanis and Havyne Cooper). The boys 4×100 free relay took first place and cracked the school record with 3:12.74 (Vespremi, Troy LeLoup, Gettelfinger and Woods). Sophomore Eric Hedlin placed first in both the 200 and 500 free, respectively, with 1:42.04 and 4:30.42. Woods was second and third in the 50 and 100 free (21.85) and (47.77) and Polyak took third in the 100 breast with 1:01.87. The 4×50 relay team of Willie Calabrese, Connor Robbins, Francisco Torres and LeLoup placed second with a 1:32.49. For the girls, La Jolla’s Allie Knight had first in the 100 Fly (56.98) and 100 Back (58.65), while Alanis placed second in both the 200 IM (2:06.75) and 100 free (53.15). There were second and third places for Grace Benefield in the 500 Free (5:11.08) and 200 free (1:59.06), while Tran finished second in the 100 breast (1:09.11). The two girls freestyle relay teams both took second places; Kate Woods, Megan Moreland, Cooper and Sammi McLaughlin had 1:46.21 in the 4×50, and Alanis, Benefield, McLaughlin and Knight swam 3:40.05 in the 4×100. ***** On the tennis courts, the La Jolla High boys team recently concluded regular season play for head coach Thomas Andrews, finishing as co-Western League champs (Cathedral Catholic). La Jolla finished 12-2 overall, 9-1 in league action. In the team CIF playoffs last week, La Jolla was seeded third behind Canyon Crest and Francis Parker. La Jolla met Parker at the Barnes Center in the semifinals in a hard-fought 10-8 loss. In the second round, La Jolla was down by four when Jonathan Lo came back to win a close tie-breaker to allow a rally point for the Vikings. Michael Rabinivich won his next round 6-0 and Jerry Lin did what he could do to keep his opponent on the court for as long as he could. Two very close singles matches were lost in tie-breakers in rounds one and two. The doubles teams came through for La Jolla as Daniel Lapidus and Sean Rodriguez went 3-for-3, while Niko Karnopp and Blake Cummins won 2-of-3. The match came down to the final doubles round, which was “on serve” at 4-5. “Erwin Hernandez and Harper Allen played their hearts out, and it could not have been much closer,” Andrews noted. “I could not have asked them to play harder. I was emotionally drained for hours after the match.” Despite a strong effort, Hernandez and Allen fell 7-5 to end the day. For Andrews, the effort he saw out of his teams was something special. “I saw a whole team of 13 players all focused on one goal,” Andrews commented. “I couldn’t have been more proud, and I am sure all the parents that attended feel the same. I saw a team that was so far down after the second round that most other teams would have given up. I saw a team that lost with class.” In action this week, La Jolla is competing at Coronado in the Western League Individuals. All quarterfinalists will gain entry into the CIF Individual Tournament that starts next week at the Barnes Center.