By a comfortable margin, the Skaneateles girls swim team earned another Section III Class C championship Friday at Nottingham High School – and a day later, Kaela Fiutak rose to the top of the ranks in diving.
Among a 15-team Class C field, the Lakers proved the best by a comfortable margin. Skaneateles had 368 points, well clear of second-place Holland Patent, who had 261 points. Cooperstown (200 points) edged past South Jefferson (196 points) for third place.
Individually, though, the spotlight would belong to Fiutak. In Wednesday’s opening round, she accumulated 338.35 points to seize fourth place among the 16 divers that advanced to Saturday’s finals.
Amid the pressure of the state qualifier, Fiutak earned 409.2 points and beat Whitesboro’s Emily Deck, who was second with 399.65 points. As a result, Fiutak advanced to the Nov. 18-19 state championships, to take place at Erie Community College in Buffalo.
Twice in the Class C meet, Skaneateles prevailed in relays. In fact, the Lakers’ 200 medley relay quartet of Rachael DeWitt, Nikki Cole, Haley Bucholz and Emily Wirth put up a time of 2:00.19 that broke the meet mark of 2:00.94 set by Holland Patent in 2010.
Later in the meet, Skaneateles prevailed again in the 400 freestyle relay, where DeWitt, Cole, Rachel Teixeria and Halle King posted a 3:58.41, more than six seconds ahead of runner-up Cooperstown. King and Teixeria joined Wirth and Ellen Legg for a second-place finish in the 200 freestyle relay in 1:51.56 as Holland Patent (1:49.39) won that event.
Cole would also rise to the top spot in the 100 breaststroke, her time of 1:13.74 beating Adirondack’s Jelessa Seavey (1:15.27) and the rest of the field. Cole also was second in the 50 freestyle in 25.55 seconds, just behind Pulaski’s Breann Burns (25.37 seconds).
DeWitt would have a pair of second-place efforts. In the 200 freestyle, she finished in 2:05.56 behind Cooperstown’s Cassidy Griger (2:02.43), and in the 100 backstroke DeWitt had a time of 1:05.17, beating everyone except Burns, who prevailed in 1:01.22.
Teixeria swam well, too, rising to second place in the 500 freestyle in 5:45.25 and also getting third place in the 200 individual medley in 2:30.58. Wirth worked her way to third in the 100 freestyle in 1:00.64.
King was fourth in the 500 freestyle (6:08.79) and fifth in the 200 freestyle (2:17.99), while Bucholz grabbed fifth place in the 100 butterfly in 1:11.91.
