CHULA VISTA, April 24, 2001 -- The Bonita Vista High swim team scored both a moral and physical victory Tuesday at the Southwestern College pool in its matchup with the defending City Conference champion La Jolla Vikings. The defending Metro Conference champions swept both ends of the high profile non-league dual meet to establish new heights for a program that appears to be peaking again after a decade.

"The meet exceeded our expectations," declared an exuberant Baron head coach Steve Wiggs after watching the Bonita Vista girls score a 103-86 victory and the boys swim past their opponents 121-63.

How big of a deal was this meet?

The La Jolla boys are the defending San Diego Section Division II champions; the Viking girls finished runner-up at last year’s Division II finals.

"All season, we’ve been building up to two meets — La Jolla was the first and CIF is the second," explained Wiggs in reference to the Baron boys squad. "We weren’t tapered or shaved for this meet and we had 90 percent best times."

Highlighting the Bonita Vista boys big victory were standout individual performances by senior sprinter Mike Dinsmore, who set career marks in winning both the 50- and 100-yard freestyle events. Dinsmore (22.83) touched ahead of senior teammate Josh Hernandez (23.54) in the 50 to engineer a one-two Baron finish. Dinsmore’s time of 49.83 in the 100 free marked the first time in his career that he had shattered the 50.0 plateau. It ranks as the third-best time ever recorded by a swimmer at the school. Aided by senior teammate Lee Hopper’s 52.41 time, Bonita Vista also finished one-two in that event as well. La Jolla junior Christian Guth was third in the two sprint freestyle events, clocking 23.87 and 53.51, respectively.

After winning the 100, Dinsmore raised his hand in victory and promptly climbed out of the pool to give his mother a hug.

"Without being tapered," Dinsmore said as he flashed a very satisfied smile after the events.

Dinsmore anchored the Barons’ winning 400 free relay team and swam the anchor leg on the team’s runner-up finish to the Vikings in the 200 free relay event.

Other standout performances were turned in by sophomore Paul Hernandez, who captured both the 200 individual medley and 100 breaststroke events, setting a personal best in the breaststroke with a 1:02 time in the process, and by junior Bram Hanono, who equaled personal best marks in placing second in the 500 freestyle (5:00.20) and the 200 freestyle (1:51.62).

Wiggs also heaped praise on three other swimmers: juniors Jeff Balistreri and Andrew Henning and freshman Jesse Gallegos. Balistreri made his CIF cut in the 500 free with a 5:19.06 finish (fourth in the field) while Henning clocked 5:17.37 to finish third, helping the Barons out-point the Vikings 9-7 to capture the event. Gallegos swam a personal best 1:00.70 in finishing second in the 100 backstroke to All-American Aram Kevorkian (53.44).

Kevorkian, who finished eighth at last year’s USA Olympic Trials in the 1,500-meter freestyle event, donned a special body suit for the backstroke event as part of his attempt to set a school record in every event his senior year. He’ll have to don the body suit at a future meet after falling just two-tenths of a second off the mark

Overall, the Bonita Vista boys captured first-place finishes in seven of the 12 contested events and, employing their depth, outscored La Jolla in 10 of the 12 events. The Barons swept the diving event with Doug Schulz and Nathan Golder finishing first and second. The Vikings, who lost five swimmers from last year’s CIF championship team, were also paced by senior Laurence Paik (first, 100 butterfly) and junior Chase Nielsen (second, 200 IM).

The girls’ meet, without a 1-2-3 BV diving sweep tallied into the score, wasn’t sealed until the final 400 free relay event. The Vikings entered the final event leading 82-80 but saw that lead sink beneath the waves after the Barons took first, third and fifth in the event.

"We had some breakout swims from people we weren’t expecting them from," Wiggs noted.

Malinda Groom delivered in that department with a second-place finish in the 100 backstroke (1:07.25) and third-place showing in the 200 IM (2:27.22) to record top team finishes in events that La Jolla earned top individual finishes. Sophomore Susan Bell won the 200 IM in 2:19.92, engineering a one-two Viking finish in the event with junior teammate Dominique DeBruin (2:24.70). La Jolla junior Heidi Amundson captured the 100 backstroke in 1:06.91.

The Vikings out-pointed the Barons in the first four swimming events and in six of the first eight events despite first-place individual showings by BV’s Melissa Mattero in the 200 free (2:07.20) and 500 free (5:35.22). A strong effort in the closing stages of the meet — in-cluding a victory in 400 free relay, second- and third-place finishes by Groom and teammate Erika Urrutia in the backstroke, respectively, and a first-place touch by Danielle Torre in the breaststroke — helped the local squad overcome that early deficit.

Bonita Vista’s three divers swept the field, with Brittney Aland (first), Mallory Henderson (second) and Sarah Perez (third) giving the team a vital 13-0 edge in scoring.

Baron standout Crisha Gallegos, who holds the school record in the 100 butterfly (in fact, the top three times in that event) and who has posted top three times in every event in which she has competed during her career, took second-place fin-ishes while entered in grueling back-to-back events in an effort to help out her team strategy-wise. Gallegos clocked 1:04.45 to La Jolla junior Leah Weston’s winning 1:02.45 mark in the 100 fly and was timed at 57.29 in the 100 free, an event won by the Vikings’ Bell in 56.4.

"We were trying to adjust to their lineup by putting our best swimmer in back-to-back events," Wiggs said.

Bonita Vista will be competing in the Division I postseason field, aiming high on the boys side, while La Jolla returns to the Division II ranks. Buoyed by the wins against the Vikings, the Barons have to enter the latter weeks of the season with a sense of renewed confidence and pride. But clearly there is a lot of business still left unfinished and goals to be met.