Palisades High Trio Triumphs at Taplins

It was a winning weekend for Will Rogers' Junior Lifeguard program at the Taplin Relays and it was fitting that it ended in a triumphant effort by three boys who have represented their local beach with pride ever since they joined the team.

One day after Will Rogers won the B division and placed in the top five in three others at the Taplin Relays at Dockweiler Beach, the trio of Tyler Steil, Tristan Marsh and Aidan Gray finished in first place in the Night Taplin Relay on Saturday evening at the Hermosa Beach Pier.

The competition was open to any A level junior lifeguards and took place right before the adult Taplin Relays. Twelve Southland beaches were allowed to enter two teams of three (an 'A' team and a 'B' team) for the special night relay, which consisted of three phases: running, swimming and paddling.

Putting Will Rogers in immediate contention near the front of the pack in the run portion of the boys relay was Steil, a 17-year-old Palisadian entering his senior year at Pali High. An A guard who has been in the program for seven years, Steil kicked up sand and distanced himself from the pack in the final strides of the 100-yard dash on the beach.

"The tough part about the run is that everyone starts out bunched together and it's easy to get stuck in the middle, but I threw a few elbows and came in second," Steil said. "I was pretty confident we'd win because Tristan is one of the strongest swimmers in LA County and he was out of the water way before everyone else. Aidan is an amazing paddler and he took care of business at the end." 

After Steil's opening sprint, Marsh dove into the water for the second leg and opened up a sizeable lead during the approximately 400-meter horseshoe swim around two buoys and back to shore.

"This was my first year doing the Night Taplin and I enjoyed it," said Marsh, who had missed Friday's team competition because he was in Valencia for the Summer Junior Olympic Swim Championships, where he competed in five events: the 100 butterfly, 200 individual medley, 400 individual medley, 50 freestyle and 100 breastroke. "I think it's more fun because it's at night, there's a different energy and there's only three of you, so it's very fast."

Marsh, an A level guard who has been in the program seven years, also paddles but said swimming is probably his strongest skill. The 15-year-old is going into his sophomore year at Pali High, where he specializes in the 200 individual medley and 100 butterfly for the varsity swim team.

"Ocean swimming is different," said Marsh, who knew many of the swimmers on the other teams because he has raced with or against them in regional and national competitions. "There's a lot more that goes into it because you're dealing with the current. You have to be more aggressive and you're getting pulled on a lot."

Gray was challenged most of the way in the paddle phase but was in front coming out of the water and sprinted to the finish line first.

"Tristan swam great and got us a big lead, but there was confusion about where he needed to go when he came out of the water and he had to back track around the flag to tag me," recalled Gray, also an avid surfer. "Going out I got hit by two waves and the guy in second caught up, but I knew if I stayed with him I could finish it off. We were neck and neck until about 15 feet out of the shore break but I caught a small wave that gave me a little bit of space."

While Saturday marked the first Night Taplin for Marsh, the third time proved a charm for best friends Steil and Gray, who teamed with Malibu High swimmer Jordan Wilimovsky to finish fourth in their first try and runner-up in a close relay last year.

"Aidan and I barely missed winning last time and this was our final junior lifeguard competition so I'm really happy we went out with a win," said Steil, who was one of six paddlers (along with Gray) on Will Rogers' fourth-place A division team in Friday's Taplin team competition. 

An A guard who has been in the Will Rogers program since the age of 9, the 17-year-old Gray will also be a senior at Pali High in the fall. He too remembers last year's Night Taplin vividly.

"We were a year younger than most of the other teams last year and the paddle was a lot longer," Gray recalled. "I had time to catch up to the leader but it was high tide and coming in [to shore] we both got taken off our boards, but he got to his board faster and beat me by like one second. So this was a great way to end it."

Being on the same team is nothing new for the Pali High seniors. Gray was a libero and defensive specialist and Steil played libero, opposite and outside hitter on the Dolphins' City Section runner-up vollyball squad in the spring.

Marsh seemed to embrace the experience and was not about to let his two older teammates down.

"This was definitely a big deal for me because it was for our beach," Marsh said. "I've known [Tyler and Aidan] for awhile, but we hadn't done Taplin together. The paddle was close but when Aidan hit the beach first, I grabbed his board and we knew he had it."

The Pali High threesome finished ahead of Hermosa Beach's A team and Venice came in third. Will Rogers' B team, consisting of runner Nate Merchant, swimmer Olivia Kirkpatrick and paddler Wes Gallie, finished 12th. 

Will Rogers' girls A relay team of runner Tori Scribner, swimmer Natalie Stilz and paddler Mara Silka took third place on Saturday night. Venice won thanks to a strong swim leg by Kira Makuta.

Scribner is a 15-year-old going into her sophomore year at Lighthouse Christian Academy in Santa Monica, Stilz is a Cadet-level junior guard entering her junior year at Sherman Oaks Notre Dame and Silka, a second-year Cadet, will be a senior at Pali High where she helped the Dolphins win their second straight City girls swim championship in May.

Silka and Kirkpatrick have been in the Will Rogers program since they were 9-year-olds and both travel to Cape May, New Jersey, this week for the Junior Guard Nationals.

Will Rogers' Night Taplin girls B relay team consisted of runner Hayley Nilsson, entering her senior year at West Hills Chaminade, swimmer Ellen Silka (Mara's younger sister), soon to be a sophomore at Pali High, and paddler Lauren Shultz, entering 10th grade at Santa Monica High.