SYRACUSE — In years past, the West Genesee boys swim team would write a large part of the story during the Section III championships. But in 2016, when the sectional meet returned to its traditional venue at Nottingham High School, the Wildcats were trailing the likes of Liverpool, Jamesville-DeWitt/CBA and Watertown.

Still, WG had plenty to be happy about, eventually finishing fourth in the race for the George Falwell Cup Saturday with 171 points as Watertown (299 points) edged Liverpool (292 points) and J-D/CBA (270.5 points) for that top spot after the Warriors had won a close sectional Class A race on Friday.

And none proved better than WG’s 200-yard freestyle relay team, who finished fourth in the Class A meet, but returned a day later to win the overall sectional race and, by doing so, qualify for the March 4-5 state championships at Buffalo’s Erie Community College.

Having gone 1:32.84 in that Class A meet, the Wildcats turned it up for Saturday. Nate Gdula, Evan Tuthill, Dave Whiting and Jack Barrett improved by more than two seconds, to 1:30.08, just under the state qualifying standard of 1:30.12 and enough to fend off Cooperstown (1:30.63) and J-D/CBA (1:30.67) for the victory.

Moving to the 100 butterfly, Whiting had gone as fast as 54.04 seconds, with 53.95 needed to get to the state meet. He settled for 54.49 seconds and fourth place on the Class A side, but improved to 53.84 seconds on Saturday and, while still in fourth place, got under the 53.95 seconds he needed to advance to the state meet.

Whiting also was third in the 50 freestyle in 22.26 seconds, missing the state qualifying standard by just 0.07 seconds.

Gdula had gone 52.32 seconds in the 100 freestyle before the Class A meet, but there he went 50.49 seconds and was second to Watertown’s Maclean Crossley, who won in 47.16 seconds.

continued — A day later, Gdula went 50.79 seconds in that same race and finished seventh, matching his finish in the 50 freestyle, where he went 22.96 seconds after going 22.73 seconds in the Class A meet for fifth place.

The Wildcats were fourth in the Class A 200 freestyle relay in 1:44.92 and fifth in the overall event, improving to 1:43.73 as Gdula, Barrett, Brian Salmons and Dave Whiting took part.

Tuthill posted 23,95 seconds in the 50 freestyle and was 14th (52.80 seconds) in the 100 freestyle, Colin Riley swam the 200 individual medley in 2:24.46, ahead of Cameron Chao (2:34.05), and went 1:03.53 in the 100 breaststroke, while Raymonda went 1:15.45 in the 100 butterfly.

Ryan Hagadorn entered as the no. 6 seed in the 100 breaststroke with a season-best 1:06.56, just ahead of Jack Barrett’s 1:06.72, and that’s where they finished here, too, as Hagadorn improved to 1:04.71 to hold off Barrett, who finished in 1:04.92. They were ninth and 11th, respectively, in the overall sectional standings while Tuthill, Salmons, Vinny Gettino and Matt Shoults were 12th in the 400 freestyle relay in 3:41.38.