Palisades Dominates Swim Finals

Midway through the City Section swim finals, a spectator, with notebook, stopwatch and pencil in hand, shook his head as he watched yet another Palisades High swimmer part the waters on the way to victory.

“This is like a dual meet,” the parent remarked, “Palisades against the rest of us.”

Palisades racked up an impressive first in the boys division and its girls finished second to San Pedro in front of 1,500 at the East Los Angeles City College Swim Stadium on Wednesday night.

Most of the other teams and many of the individuals at the meet were left to fight over what the two Dolphin teams left behind. The Palisades boys finished with a staggering 275 points. The Palisades girls finished with 232 to San Pedro’s 249.

But at least one other team did pretty well, too. The brothers Ballard of Birmingham combined to win three individual events to lead the Braves to a tie with Cleveland for second with 200 points.

Matt Ballard, a senior who entered the 200 individual medley with the best time of any qualifier at 2:02.07, led a trio of Valley finishers in the event. Ballard (2:02.36) defeated Joel Zide of Kennedy (2:04.33) and Cary Fitchmun of El Camino Real (2:09.36).

Ballard later won the 100 freestyle in 48.0, nearly 1 1/2 seconds faster than his qualifying time of 49.43. Andre Keil of Cleveland finished third at 50.06.

Freshman Chris Ballard, Matt’s younger brother, won the 500 freestyle in 4:49.47 and finished fifth in the 200 freestyle.

In the boys 200 medley relay, the Cleveland team of Scott Webster, Shel Ogasawara, Eugene Atanasio and Andre Keil edged Palisades for first with a time of 1:43.27.

Kennedy’s Stephanie Bair won the 500 freestyle in 5:15.2 and placed third in the 200 freestyle in 1:59.89.

Pat Winton of El Camino Real, who won the 100 backstroke in 1:01.75, placed second in the 200 freestyle at 1:48.42.

Pat Wilson of Birmingham (1:48.55) finished third in the 200 freestyle and second in the 100 butterfly with 54.54.

In the girls 50 freestyle, Audrey Rossie of El Camino Real finished first in 25.83. Teammate Suzanne Winton was third at 26.6. Rossie also finished second in the 100 butterfly in 1:01.43, with Irina Kardjono of Birmingham finishing third (1:03.55).

Scott Webster of Cleveland won the 100 backstroke in 56.60, barely edging Brian Leven (56.78) of El Camino Real.

Overall, El Camino Real placed fourth in the boys and third in the girls division. Birmingham also won the girls and boys frosh-soph divisions.