In both the pool and on the diving board, the Liverpool and Cicero-North Syracuse boys swim teams would find various amounts of success during last week’s Section III championships at Nottingham High School.
For the Northstars, diver Billy Werksman made a bit of history. On his way to qualifying for the state meet March 2-3 at Buffalo’s Erie Community College, Werksman earned 522.30 points, setting a Class A meet record.
Both Werksman and Dan Roche, who finished third with 491.90 points, earned trips to the state meet to join Mexico star Nick Rodriguez, who won with a record 565.20 points. Also for the Warriors, Joe Whaley was 12th, while Ethan Stallcup took 14th place and Nick Matthews finished 16th.
Turning to the swimming portion, Liverpool, despite a young roster with just one senior, rose to third place in Class A last Friday with 277 points, trailing only first-time champion Watertown and West Genesee. The Warriors were also third in Sunday’s overall sectional meet with 196 points.
Nick Burdo had a strong showing on two fronts. Burdo took second in the Class A 100 backstroke in 56.60 seconds, trailing only Baldwinsville’s Danny Burke (52.30 seconds). Two days later, Burdo swam the same race in 57.01 seconds and finished third.
Also, Burdo finished third in the Class A portion of the 100 freestyle, qualifying for the state meet with a swift time of 47.80 seconds. He fell to fourth (48.64 seconds) on Sunday as Oswego’s Drake Becksted broke 23-year-old sectional records in both the 100 free (45.21 seconds) and 50 free (20.64 seconds) on his way to Most Outstanding Swimmer honors.
Garrett Clarke got second place in the 100 breaststroke, doing better in the Class A meet with a time of 1:00.72, slightly ahead of the 1:00.91 he posted on Sunday. Watertown’s Mike Netto (58.14 seconds) took the top spot.
Liverpool’s 200 medley relay team of Burdo, Clarke, Troy Miller and Dan Hens finished third in 1:41.07, just under the state qualifying standard of 1:40.67. In the 200 freestyle relay, Burdo, Hens, Drew Henry and Brian Alsever were sixth in 1:32.37.
On his own, Hens earned sixth place in the 500 freestyle in 5:02.18 and took seventh place in the 50 freestyle in 23.09 seconds. Clarke took 10th in the 200 individual medley in 2:09.03 and Miller was 15th. Marc Alessi got 12th in the 100 backstroke.
As for CNS, Werksman, Ben Mozo, Tim Hahn and Ricky Blackburn got together to win the consolation race in the 400 freestyle relay in 3:32.28, beating Liverpool (3:38.09), who was 12th. Mozo won the consolation race in the 100 freestyle, finishing ninth in 50.85 seconds.
