Before 2013 ended, the CBA/Jamesville-DeWitt boys swim team had sprinted to a 4-0 start, and had to wonder how the long holiday break would affect them.
It turned out to be a refresher, for when the Red Rams returned Thursday night to face 4-2 New Hartford, all was fine and normal as Josh Lacey, Corey Knapp and Kevin Potocki led the way in a 99-81 victory over the Spartans.
Joined by Casey Sawyer, Lacey, Knapp and Potocki started out in the 200 medley relay, CBA/J-D roaring to a time of one minutes, 47.53 seconds as the Spartans (1:51.32) lagged behind.
Then Lacey, absent from high school swimming the last two years, went out on his own, going a season-best 1:51.55 in the 200 freestyle, with teammate Ben Katsarsky (2:01.35) behind.
Later in the meet, Lacey, in the 500 freestyle, dazzled again, picking up a winning time of 4:55.70 to go to the top of the Section III leaderboard.
Knapp had his own double, starting in the 200 individual medley, where he prevailed in 2:11.94 over teammate Nick Street (2:21.78), and he also had a solid victory in the 100 freestyle in 50.43 seconds.
Potocki also won on his own, needing 55.25 seconds to roar through the 100 butterfly, and then going to the 100 breaststroke and finishing in 1:08.02. Street won the 100 backstroke in 1:00.79, edging out Jack Martin (1:00.99), while Alex Dieroff, with 219.75 points, held off Matt Wanamker (218.40 points) in a tense diving competition.
Before exiting the stage on this night, Jeff Gabriel, who was second in the 50 freestyle (24.52 seconds) to New Hartford’s Tyler Newman (23.72 seconds), joined Lacey, Knapp and Dan McGann as CBA/J-D, in 1:40.22, pulled away from the Spartans (1:47.18) in the 200 freestyle relay.
As for Fayetteville-Manlius, it visited West Genesee last Wednesday night, and while there were some good moments, it could not keep up all night with the Wildcats in a 100-69 defeat.
Tiberiu Mihalia struck an early blow for the Hornets when, in the 200 individual medley, he won the race in 2:26.41, holding off WG’s Colin Riley (2:28.12) at the wire. Matt Beach offered another victory when he earned 216.2 points on the diving board.
F-M did prevail in the 400 freestyle relay as Dan Dettor, Ryan Quigley, Josh Lok and Ben Stroh finished in 4:32.37, but it met with a lot of frustration elsewhere.
Twice, Chris Rettinger lost close races, edged by one-hundredth of a second in the 100 freestyle as he finished in 54.17 seconds and the Wildcats’ Sean Hagadorn touched in 54.16 seconds. In the 100 breastroke, Rettinger got 1:07.90 and Hagadorn won in 1:07.33.
Dettor was second in the 200 freestyle and 500 freestyle, with Will Lewis second in the 100 butterfly. Mihalia, Dettor, Quigley and Rettinger were second (1:59.99) to WG (1:50.05) in the 200 freestyle relay, with Mihalia, Stroh, Rettinger and Kyle O’Byrne getting to 1:53.16 in the 200 freestyle relay, an event the Wildcats won in 1:49.74.
Three different times, WG swimmers won twice. Aside from Hagadorn, Matt O’Donnell took the 100 butterfly (58.54 seconds) and 100 backstroke (1:04.64), while Collin Zapisek tore to first in the 200 freestyle in 1:46.45 and also was victorious in the 500 freestyle.
