LIVERPOOL – While sharing first place in the Salt City Athletic Conference Metro division standings with Fayetteville-Manlius, the Liverpool girls swim had a chance to end the regular season with a big win.
The Warriors hosted undefeated Jamesville-DeWitt Wednesday night, and led by strong individual performances from Evelyn Jones and Thearyn Wales the Red Rams (who also gave F-M its lone defeat) stayed perfect, prevailing by a score of 98-83.
However, Liverpool did get the edge in diving as two stars who’ve already qualified for November’s state championships, June Piorkowski and Kayla McQuaid, dueled to the end.
And Piorkowski won it, her 270.25 points just ahead of McQuaid’s 266.55 as she partially avenged McQuaid’s win in the Burgos Invitational at Nottingham four days earlier. Molly Murphy did well, too, finishing third with 234.95 points.
Another title went to Natalie Thompson, whose 1:06.84 in the 100 butterfly beat out the 1:08.04 of J-D’s Maria Fisher, while Ruby Brown got first-place points in the 100 breaststroke in 1:16.27, not far from Maggie Lister’s 1:14.22. Thompson then joined Arianna Kuznia, Brielle Bright and Elizabeth Manley to swim the 400 freestyle relay in 4:00.13.
Manley nearly won the 200 freestyle, her 2:10.19 just nine-hundredths of a second behind the 2:10.10 from Cora Bright as she added a third in the 100 freestyle in 1:00.14.
Jones twice won for the Rams, going 26.36 seconds in the 50 freestyle and in the 100 freestyle prevailing in 58.03 to edge the 58.10 from Kuznia, who swam the 50 freestyle in 26.61 for another runner-up finish.
Meanwhile, Wales followed up her 200 individual medley victory in 2:23.65 by pulling away in the 100 backstroke, finishing in 1:02.34 as Bryant was second in 1:08.75. Bryant’s 2:29.72 in the 200 individual medley was a close third to Lister’s 2:29.48.
Liverpool also went 2:10.83 in the 200 medley relay behind J-D’s 1:59.83 and 1:50.01 in the 200 freestyle relay to trail the Rams’ winning 1:49 flat.
After a ‘Last Chance’ meet to post possible qualifying times, Liverpool and Cicero-North Syracuse go to work for the Section III championships, with diving taking place Nov. 2, the Class A meet Nov. 6 and the state qualifier on Nov. 8.
