All through this winter, four Cazenovia High School students have taken part in boys swimming with Fayetteville-Manlius, competing in home meets a few blocks from their home campus at Cazenovia College.
That included sophomore Quinn Smith, who would go to Thursday’s Section III Class A championships at Nottingham High School and secure spots in next month’s state meet in two different events, winning the 500-yard freestyle.
Going into the meet, Smith has posted a time of five minutes, 5.70 seconds that made him the third seed, well behind Liverpool’s Griffin Merkling, the top seed at 4:56.86.
But throughout the long race, Smith proved a bit quicker than Merkling, and then he pulled away in the last 100 yards, finishing in 4:48.77 to Merkling’s 4:51.74, an improvement of nearly 17 seconds from earlier this season.
Since the state qualifying standard was 4:52.52, Smith easily gained a place on the Section III team that will go to Long Island’s Nassau Aquatic Center for the March 6-7 state meet – and he’ll do so in two events.
Earlier in the sectional meet, Smith attacked the 200 individual medley. Again, Merkling was the main opposition and this time the Liverpool junior won in 1:57.92.
However, Smith, needing to record 2:00.63 to reach the state meet, finished in 1:59.63 to advance. That was an improvement of more than eight seconds over his previous best of 2:08.23.
Moving to Saturday’s sectional state qualifier, Smith would go 4:49.92 in the 500 freestyle, finishing a close second to Syracuse’s Belal Hamad, who posted 4:49.71 to get to the top spot.
In the 200 IM, Smith improved 1:58.92, still second to Merkling, who won in 1:56.95. And in the 400 freestyle relay, Smith, joining Lucas Weires, Eric Bang and Ben Rabin, went 3:19.94, again second to Liverpool, who went 3:17.79.
Three other Cazenovia students swam at the sectional Class A meet, too, with sophomore Cooper Hughes making his way to 18th place in the 50 freestyle in a season-best 24.48 seconds.
Freshman Max Vidakovic took part in the 100 backstroke, finishing 24th in 1:09.41, and eighth-grader Eddie Comeau swam in the 100 breaststroke, getting 22nd place in 1:15.58.
