SYRACUSE – What the Liverpool girls swim team wanted the most was to pull off, again, a victory over Fayetteville-Manlius, this time with the Section III Class A championship at stake.
During Wednesday’s sectional meet at Nottingham High School, the Warriors did put up quite an effort, yet settled for second place with 330 points to the Hornets’ winning 379 as Cicero-North Syracuse was third with 324 points.
Liverpool’s best individual finish came in the 50-yard freestyle where Kaitlyn Thompson, in 25.56 seconds, gained second place, trailing only the 24.81 from F-M’s Georgia Langan. Thompson also was third in the 100 backstroke in 1:03.01.
Arianna Kuznia, fifth in the 100 backstroke (1:05.70), contended in the 100 freestyle, going 56.55 seconds to finish third, not far from Langan’s winning 55.32 as Kerry Hunter made her way to seventh place in 59.93.
Sarah Colwell, swimming in the 500 freestyle, finished fourth in 5:36.15, not far from the winning 5:30.48 by Oswego-Mexico’s Ciarrah Tynan, to go with an eighth-place clocking of 2:07.49 in the 200 freestyle.
Colwell, Thompson, Kuznia and Emerson Gellert paired up to swim the 200 freestyle relay in 1:44.64, third behind Oswego-Mexico (1:42.37) and F-M (1:43.56), and improved to second in the closing 400 freestyle relay with a time of 3:52.58, again with Oswego-Mexico taking top honors in 3:46.45.
Emerson Gellert finished sixth in the 100 butterfly in 1:06.02 and seventh in the 200 individual medley in 2:27.65. Julia King finished eighth in the 100 breaststroke in 1:17.22.
Kerry Hunter, Katelyn Alperuto, Mary Hayden and Delaney Jessie were sixth in the 200 medley relay in 2:04.30, with Isabelle Akley eighth (1:09.87) in the 100 butterfly.
C-NS had attained a victory four days earlier when Kaitlyn Carroll earned her third consecutive Class A title in the diving competition.
Earning 468.15 points, Carroll pulled way from the runner-up, West Genesee’s Lily Mauro (399.15), to earn the top spot, while teammate Sophia Sugrue finished third with 389.80 points.
Liverpool’s June Piorkowski also did well in diving, earning 369.70 points for fifth place, with her teammate Sofia Valente taking eighth with 346.50 points as Isabella Moya was 14th for C-NS (295.85) and Brianna Patton 16th (267.00) for the Warriors.
Then in the race portion of the sectional meet, the Northstars, in the opening 200 medley relay, had Leah Benedict, Kate Gucciardi, Cassisy Svoboda and Rose Coleman take second place in 1:55.40 to F-M’s winning 1:52.73.
Benedict finished second in the 200 IM in 2:23.58 as Molly Gucciardi made her way to fifth place in 2:25.76, while in the 100 backstroke Gucciardi went 1:02.24 to get second place, while Cassidy Payrot (1:08.16) beat out Ella Lawrence and Julia Kulakowski for sixth place.
In the 100 butterfly, Kate Gucciardi was third in 1:02.78, just ahead of Benedict (1:03.43) in fifth place. Benedict, Svoboda, Coleman and Gucciardi went 1:46.15 to finish fourth.
Svoboda took fifth in the 100 breaststroke in 1:15.24, while Molly Gucciardi (1:16.59) was seventh. Abigail Bouziden, Maria Barbato, Natalina VanTassel and Ella Lawrence were sixth in the 400 freestyle relay in 4:16.42.
Carroll is on her way to the Nov. 18-19 New York State Public High School Athletic Association championships at Webster Aquatic Center near Rochester, and does so after another victory at Friday’s sectional state qualifier.
Earning 513.60 points, Carroll nearly matched her own sectional record of 515.60 set one year earlier while pulling away from Jamesville-DeWitt’s Kayla McQuaid, who was second with 469.50 as Sugrue was fifth with 379.85 and Piorkowski sixth with 359.10.
Overall, Liverpool finished fifth and C-NS sixth in the team portion, with New Hartford (277) edging F-M (268.5) for the top spot and the George Falwell Cup, its first since 2005.
C-NS had Benedict, Gucciardi, Coleman and Svoboda finish third in the 200 medley relay in 1:54.08. Gucciardi, third in the 100 backstroke in 1:01.84, took fifth (1:02.49) and Benedict sixth (1:02.75) in the 100 butterfly.
Liverpool, meanwhile, had Thompson tie for fourth in the 50 freestyle in 25.87 seconds and get fifth place in the 100 backstroke in a clocking of 1:03.03.
Colwell went 5:36.83 in the 500 freestyle to finish sixth as Gellert was seventh in the 100 butterfly in 1:05.24. Kuznia took seventh in the 100 freestyle in 56.73.
In the 200 freestyle relay, Thompson, Gellert, Kuznia and Colwell were fourth in 1:45.33, beating out C-NS (1:46.46) in fifth place, with that same Warriors team finishing fourth in the 400 freestyle relay in 3:52.42.
