Once again, the West Genesee girls swim team has a clear and distinct path to completing an undefeated regular season.
Having not lost a head-to-head meet since 2009, the Wildcats got tested at home against Liverpool Thursday night, but a pair of close wins by Olivia Castro, plus a relay sweep, keyed a 93-87 victory over the Warriors.
Castro’s first big victory came in the 200-yard freestyle. Battling with Liverpool’s Sydnie Sovinsky, it was Castro getting to the wall first in two minutes, 1.24 seconds, inches ahead of Sovinsky, who posted a swift second-place time of 2:01.41.
And it was even closer in the 100 freestyle. Now Castro went up against Madeline Murphy, who had already given the Warriors a win in the 50 freestyle in 25.31 seconds, ahead of Chezeki Bourdeau (27.09 seconds), the top Wildcats’ finisher.
Just as in the 200 free, Castro found herself matching Murphy stroke for stroke, and both nearly touched the wall at the same time – but it was Castro, in 54.34 seconds, pulling it out against Murphy, who posted 54.38 seconds, just 0.04 seconds behind.
With Liverpool posting all kinds of second and third-place finishes, including the relays, WG had to win a lot, and it did.
The Wildcats’ relay sweep started in the 200 freestyle opener, where Boudreau, Shannon Cahalan, Abby Mullett and Becca Kanoza got to first place in 2:02.71.
Then Castro got involved, joining Mullett, Kaitlin Dunning and Jessica Mellen as WG roared through the 200 freestyle relay in 1:47.63. To clinch the meet title, Castro, Cahalan, Kanoza and Dunning put up 3:56.02 for a victory in the 400 freestyle relay.
Cahalan’s lone win came in the 200 individual medley, where, in a clocking of 2:24.37, she held off Mullett, whose 2:28.64 created a 1-2 finish. Dunning did much the same thing in the 500 freestyle, prevailing in 5:39.53 and seeing Maddie Zapisek (5:43.02) take second place.
Abby Uzcen, off her school-record performance on Oct. 14 at Jamesville-DeWitt, didn’t quite get those numbers here, but with 216.25 points she beat out Liverpool’s Alyssa Vadala (205.15 points) for top honors. Kanoza was first in the 100 backstroke in 1:06.41, with Boudreau (1:17.15) holding off Allison Byrne (1:17.70) to win the 100 breaststroke.
With a 9-0 record, WG will swim twice at home next week, facing Syracuse on Wednesday and New Hartford on Friday night before an Oct. 29 regular-season finale against Skaneateles.
