Though it was just for one race amid two days of championship competition, the Skaneateles girls swim team can still proudly proclaim that it took part in the New York State Public High School Athletic Association championship meet.
When the state meet convened Nov. 18 at Ithaca College, the Lakers made the short trip with the 200-yard medley relay team of seniors Rose Keady and Leah King, plus freshman Lily Buchholz and eighth-grader Ashley Drotar, that had posted the best Section III time of the fall in one minute, 51.83 seconds, a school record.
That put Skaneateles into the 33rd qualifying spot, where a slight improvement in the standings would mean a trip to the Nov. 19 finals. However, the time would fall to 1:53.31 and the Lakers finished 35th, missing out on the finals by less than half a second, since it took 1:52.86 to advance.
Eventually, the 200 medley relay was won by Long Beach (Section VIII), from Long Island, whose winning time of 1:43.21 broke the state record of 1:44.02 that same team had set in the qualifying rounds a day earlier. Two members of that quartet, Kristen Romano and Margaret Aroesty, would go on to win state titles in other races – Romano in the 100 butterfly and 100 backstroke, Aroesty in the 100 breaststroke.
All of this followed the work done by divers Gabriella Capozza and Kyra Cottrill, who were fourth and sixth, respectively, in the Section III Class C championships on Nov. 4 at the Community Center YMCA. They were the first girls to qualify for the sectional meet in both swimming and diving events.
