Cupertino Hills Swim Team Wins Big in JSSL Championships at Stanford

A rite of passage for the after any meet win, this sendoff was a little different than the rest.

After the final buzzer sounded, head coach and the rest of her assistant coaches were dunked into the water to join the rest of the happy Cupertino Hills Sharks team.

The Sharks had just completed a stirring first place finish at the JSSL Championship Swim Meet held at the Avery Aquatic Center on the campus of Stanford University on Saturday, July 23.

Cupertino Hills finished with 289 points, just 16 points more than second place finisher Green Meadow (Palo Alto).

Boys and girls swimmers ranging from seven years old to 18 competed in the event in races across five age groups.

The divisions raced in order, starting with the 7-8s, followed by the 9-10s, 11-12s, 13-14s and lastly, the 15-18s.

While the Sharks only brought around 100 swimmers to the meet, other top clubs from Saratoga, Sunnyvale and Palo Alto brought squads that doubled the size of the Cupertino bunch.

parent volunteer was on hand for the championships at Stanford.

“We were definitely the smallest swim club there,” Lentfer said. “You could hear each team’s warm-up cheer just echo through the entire stadium. Each team had one star or two, but I think our depth won us the event. That’s really a credit to our coaches.”

Even with several key team members away due to family vacations, the Sharks had a bushel of swimmers record season-best marks in the championship finale. The handful of personal best marks, coupled with the fact that this was her first season back as head coach of the program, made the whole experience a memorable one for Coach Zapp.

“It was the highlight of my year,” Zapp said. “We just kept getting incredible performance after performance. I was so proud of everyone on the team.”

Only ahead by five points going into the final team relays, Coach Zapp and her staff juggled the lineup around just right during the most crucial races of the day.

The final relay team of Sean Hughes, Nicole Deacon, Nick Sinzig and Henri DeGroot secured the championship, emptying the tank against the strongest swimmers in the meet.

In the final race prior to the relays, Hughes missed a league record by a couple hundredths of a second. Less than 10 minutes later, Hughes, along with fellow Monta Vista High students Sinzig and DeGroot, took part in the high intensity 15-18 team relay finals.

“Sean (Hughes) came so close to breaking that league record,” Zapp said. “He of course bested his personal mark and then came right back and swam so hard for his team in the relay event. Nick (Sinzig) was swimming through an injury and gave us another incredible performance. Everyone pushed themselves to the limit.”

Wading through all the remarkable showings during the day wasn’t easy, but Deacon’s inclusion in the 15-18 finals was a story too good to be true.

Deacon, a gifted swimmer who trains nearly year round, hasn’t even had her 13th birthday yet. She along with the rest of the foursome helped wrap things up in style for the Sharks.

“I’m still on cloud nine thinking about it,” Zapp said. “The whole stadium was going crazy during the last couple of races. It was a moment I won’t forget.”

Cupertino Hills and Green Meadow took first and second place, while Saratoga Woods and Laurelwood (Sunnyvale) finished in third and fourth respectively.

Racers were awarded points for finishing in the top six of each race.

“I was at Stanford, but you could have probably heard the screaming during the last couple of races from Cupertino,” Lentfer said. “All the second, fourth and fifth place finishes really added up. Turned out our average swimmer is pretty good.”