Having the Section III Class A championship was nice, but for the Liverpool boys swim team, total satisfaction would only derive from beating everyone else, too.
So the Warriors went to SUNY-Cortland’s pool last Saturday for the sectional state qualifier, which also served as a competition among all the teams in the three classes, with the overall winner gaining possession of the George Falwell Cup.
And just like it did a year ago, Liverpool finished on top. Earning 328 points, it easily pulled away from its Class A challengers, who finished like they did at the sectional meet two days earlier, with Watertown second (247 points) and Jamesville-DeWitt/CBA (232.5 points) in third place.
One change from the Class A meet was the way things started. Liverpool won right away, in the 200-yard medley relay, where Connor Troy Miller, Tom Griffin, Liam Rogers and Connor Thiel posted a time of one minute, 41.73 seconds, getting past runner-up Cooperstown (1:42.97) and the field.
After Thiel’s third-place finish in the 200 individual medley (2:08.13), Nick Burdo took over. The junior sensation got into a battle with Cooperstown’s Ian Robinson in the 50 freestyle, but hung on to win in 21.76 seconds to Robinson’s 21.86, with J-D/CBA’s Cory Knapp (22.16 seconds) third.
Miller went to his specialty, the 100 butterfly, where a great duel with Watertown’s Joey Ongkingco ensued. Having finished fourth in the 200 freestlye after winning that race at the Class A meet, Ongkingco nearly caught Miller, but in 52.70 seconds, Miller prevailed over Ongkingco (52.92 seconds) by a slim margin.
Burdo returned for the 100 freestyle, with Henry. No one would challenge Burdo as he needed 47.38 seconds to earn the title, with Sherburne-Earlville’s Gavin Lopata (48.56 seconds) more than a second behind in the runner-up spot as Thiel, in 49.89 seconds, took fifth place.
Later in the meet, Miller and Thiel repeated their 1-2 effort in the 100 breaststroke, as Miller got the victory in 1:00.97 and Thiel, in 1:01.79, was less than a second behind. Matt Petit was third in the 100 backstroke in 56.76 seconds, with Rogers rising to fifth place in 58.97 seconds.
During a close 200 freestyle relay, Burdo, Henry, Miller and Petit went 1:29.32, but finished second behind J-D/CBA, who won in 1:28.53. In the closing 400 freestyle relay, with the Falwell Cup wrapped up, Burdo, Henry, Petit and Rogers finished third in 3:23.59.
Now the top Warriors’ swimmers would get two full weeks of intense preparation before going to Ithaca College on Feb. 27-28 to participate in the New York State Public High School Athletic Association championship meet.
