City Swimming : El Camino Real Wins Another Title--Its Eighth in a Row

Led by two record-breaking performances by Bob Baldocchi, El Camino Real won its eighth straight City swimming championship Tuesday night at East Los Angeles College.

El Camino finished with 235 points, edging second-place Venice, which totaled 210. The victory marked the 28th straight time a Valley school has won the meet.

In the girls’ competition, Palisades, led by a record-setting 200-yard medley relay team, rolled to its fourth straight title, scoring 270 points. El Camino Real finished second with 239.

Baldocchi, a powerful junior, established City marks in the 50- and 100-yard freestyle events, and then swam an incredible anchor leg on El Camino Real’s winning 400-yard freestyle relay.

In the 50, Baldocchi touched in 21.27, snapping his own mark of 21.52 set in the preliminaries May 6. He came back in the 100 with a time of 45.83, breaking the mark of 46.12 set by Joe Lileikas of El Camino in 46.12.

Then, in the 400-freestyle relay, he went into the water more than two body lengths behind and roared back in the final 50 yards to bring home the victory in 3:19.16.

Palisades was led by Michelle Saxer, who won the 200 individual medley in 2:11.84, finished second in the 500 freestyle, and swam the opening leg of the 200 individual medley relay, which established a City mark of 1:55.86, breaking the school’s mark of 1:57.48 set in the preliminaries.