Yes, it helped that the West Genesee girls swim team was the hosts during Friday night’s Section III Class A championship meet.

But no matter what the venue, the Wildcats, who had just finished a fifth consecutive undefeated regular season, carried that magic into the post-season, earning yet another sectional team title.

It was close at the top, but WG, with 364 points, held off Cicero-North Syracuse, who was a surprising runner-up with 344 points. Oswego, with 336 points, edged past Liverpool (334 points) to grab third place.

Olivia Castro was named the meet’s Most Outstanding Swimmer. She qualified for the Nov. 21-22 state championships at Ithaca College with her victory in the 200-yard freestyle in a time of one minute, 54.50 seconds to edge Oswego’s Caitlin Gorton (1:54.78) at the finish. Kaitlin Dunning, in 2:01.62, was fourth and Maddie Zapisek (2:04.32) sixth.

As if that wasn’t enough, Castro went to the 100 freestyle and, pulling away from Oswego’s Mariah Metcalf (53.54 seconds) and Liverpool’s Madeline Murphy (54 seconds flat), claimed that race in 52.51 seconds, setting a WG pool record.

Shannon Cahalan was victorious in the 100 backstroke, posting a time of 1:01.54 as Becca Kanoza took third place in 1:04.41. Cahalan also got to second place in the 100 butterfly in 1:01.26, where Abby Mullett finished fourth (1:04.66), edging out Mikki Riley (1:04.67) for that spot.

During the 200 freestyle relay, Castro, paired with Dunning, Riley and Jenna Mellen, thought it had a second-place time of 1:43.68 behind Oswego (1:40.24), but got disqualified. The Wildcats also were fourth in the 200 medley relay in 1:58.19 as Oswego (1:51.27) prevailed.

The Wildcats did win, though, in the meet-closing 400 freestyle relay, where Castro, Dunning, Kanoza and Chezeki Boudreau would beat the field with a clocking of 3:45.23.

Dunning took fourth place in the 500 freestyle in 5:29.49, while Zapisek (5:36.87) gained fifth place. Riley, on her own, finished fifth in the 200 individual medley in 2:24.80, with Abby Mullett taking sixth place in 2:26.25.

Boudreau got to fifth in the 50 freestyle in 26.59 seconds, just ahead of Mellen (27.29 seconds) in sixth place, and Boudreau added an eighth (1:15.74) in the 100 breaststroke.

Moving on to Sunday’s Section III state qualifier at Hamilton College, the Wildcats would take fourth place, with 221 points, trailing Jamesville-DeWitt, who repeated as champions with 331 points, plus New Hartford (262 points) and Oswego (246 points).

This happened even though Castro again won twice, improving to 1:54.28 in the 200 freestyle to hold off Gorton (1:55.21) for the top spot, and then going 52.43 seconds to edge J-D’s Alden Coyne (52.66 seconds) in the 100 freestyle.

Cahalan nearly prevailed in the 100 backstroke, going 1:00.17, just behind CBA’s Annie Fletcher, who won in 59.86 seconds. Elsewhere, Cahalan was third in the 100 butterfly in 59.50 seconds.

Kanoza was seventh (55.94 seconds) in the 100 freestyle and Dunning took eighth place (5:31.28) in the 500 freestyle. Cahalan, Castro, Dunning and Kanoza were second (3:41.18) to New Hartford (3:40.55) in the 400 freestyle relay.