SYRACUSE – In a couple of years, the Liverpool and Cicero-North Syracuse girls swim teams will always have their meets on a high school campus.
For now, though, the Northstars had to “host” the meet at Nottingham High School, where Tuesday night the two rivals would battle to the final race before the Warriors won it 96-90.
Both sides had gained plenty of points leading up to the 400-yard freestyle relay, but here Liverpool would make sure it stayed in front.
The Warriors’ quartet of Kaitlyn Thompason, Arianna Kuznia, Natalie Thompson and Sarah Colwell would finish in four minutes, 9.45 seconds, easily topping the C-NS time of 4:20.74.
This same group had alerady won the 200 freestyle relay, speeding to a time of 1:48.47 which was needed since the Northstars’ team of Rose Coleman, Leah Benedict, Cassidy Payrot and Kate Gucciardi was a close second in 1:48.67.
Colwell and Kaitlyn Thompson would both win two races for Liverpool. In the 200 freestyle, Colwell pulled away to prevail in 2:10.77, later adding a 500 freestyle victory in 5:56.37, more than half a minute ahead of the field.
During the 50 freestyle, Kaitlyn Thompson’s 26.43 seconds beat Coleman’s 27.22, while in the 100 backstroke Thompson needed 1:06.43 to finish ahead of Payrot (1:08.98) and Ella Lawrence, who was second in 1:09.76.
C-NS countered with a win from Benedict in the 100 freestyle in 1:04.03, along with Molly Gucciardi (1:19.63) going 1-2 with Kate Gucciardi (1:20.12) in the 100 breaststroke beating the Warriors’ Ruby Brown (1:22.98).
Kuznia won for Liverpool in the 200 individual medley in 2:26.33, exactly two seconds ahead of Benedict’s 2:28.33, while Sophia Sugrue won for the Northstars in diving, her 214.8 points beating Molly Murphy’s 203.9 as Isabella Moya (195.85) was third.
In the meet-opening 200 medley relay, the Northstars had Benedict, Lawrence, Molly Gucciardi and Abigail Bouziden pull away to win in 2:06.82. Bouziden also finished second in the 500 freestyle.
