SAN JOSE — Palo Alto has long been a powerhouse at the Central Coast Section swimming and diving championships.

The Vikings are a perennial contender at the CCS meet, winning boys team championships in 2022 and 2023. The girls won titles in 1995, 2005, 2016 and 2017.

But Palo Alto took things to another level on Saturday at Independence High. For the first time in the Vikings program’s proud history, it won both the boys and girls team titles at the CCS championships.

It was the first time the same school won both the boys and girls CCS titles in the same year.

The Paly girls held off Archbishop Mitty for the CCS team title, compiling 194 points to Mitty’s 190. The boys routed the field, collecting 244.5 points to clear second-place Bellarmine (203) and earn their third CCS championship in program history.

“It was a little stressful near the end, but I liked the conclusion of it,” Paly coach Danny Dye said.

The Vikings used strength in numbers to secure their titles. Paly won the girls 200-yard freestyle relay, with Llew Ladomirak, Katie Spitzer, Hannah Oh, and Sabrina Meyers clocking 1:34.99.

But that was the only event the Vikings won. Instead, they earned their championshipa with contributions from across the lineup.

“Both of them were actually true team victories, where we didn’t have any individual champions and only one relay champion,” Dye said. “But we had balance throughout, and it was because of that that they were able to pull the point totals where they were.”

The CCS record fell in the 200-yard freestyle as King’s Academy junior Nathan Foucu swam a blistering 1:35.40 to set the meet standard.

Valley Christian junior and Princeton commit Yury Kuzmenko broke the CCS record in the 100-yard freestyle at 43.42. Kuzmenko flirted with the record in the 50 free, winning in 19.65 seconds to come up just short of Ethan Harrington’s 2023 mark of 19.57.

The team titles, though, belonged to Paly’s boys and girls.

“They were definitely rooting for each other,” Dye said. “From the beginning of the year, I told them what they could accomplish. So they’ve been pushing each other all year, cheering each other on. You get the club kids and you let them know how high school is different, and how the points go. So they really understood their role.”

It was a validating meet for Paly, which finished as the runner-up in both the boys and girls competitions last year. The twin titles gave Dye his sixth and seventh section championships all-time, surpassing legendary Paly coach Nort Thornton Sr. for most in Vikings history.

Thornton Sr. won his section titles during his Palo Alto tenure from 1945-60, when the Vikings competed in the North Coast Section.

Dye picked up his 300th and 301st career dual meet wins at Paly’s final dual against Gunn, setting the stage for a strong performance at the section meet. After avenging the boys runner-up finish to Gunn in 2024 and holding off Mitty in the nip-and-tuck girls race, the Vikings have much to celebrate as they prepare for the state meet in Clovis.

“The pressure was on,” Dye said. “Mitty has some very, very good swimmers, so you’re worried that those swimmers can step up and pass you by with that little bit of a lead that you gave yourself. But our girls held serve. For every movement one of the Mitty girls made, our girls did the same thing. They stood tall and did what they had to do.

“It was amazing to see how stoic they were. It didn’t make them nervous, it didn’t make them scared. They didn’t choke and have bad times. They stood up to the challenge and did it.

“And the boys were amazing. They were like a machine. We know we have a lot of senior leadership, so here’s what we need to do, here’s what we’re going to do. To see them step up with that maturity as athletes, as high school athletes, it was an amazing feeling.”