In the last couple of years, the girls swimming rivalry between Liverpool and Cicero-North Syracuse, once so lopsided in the Warriors’ favor, swung in a different direction toward the side without the home pool at its high school.
So it only figured that the Northstars would continue this trend Tuesday night at the Le Moyne College facility it uses for home meets, accumulating enough points even when wasn’t winning races, and then closing strong to defeat Liverpool by a score of 100-86.
Even when Liverpool’s quartet of Sydney Sovinsky, Ali Testone, Jaida Fox and Brooke Winn claimed the opening 200-yard freestyle relay in a thriller, 1:58.34 to the 1;58.54 posted by the Northstars’ Brooke Fedi, Kiersten Coates, Molly Thorn and Carla Champagne, C-NS also finished third (2:07.22) to gain a point edge.
C-NS saw Lauren Thorne win the 200 freestyle in 2:08.17 and Fedi step up to take the 100 butterfly in 1:06.33 before Coates pulled out a victory in the 100 fresetyle in 57.54 seconds. Champagne went 1:08.88 to emerge victorious in the 100 backstroke.
Just as important was the points the Northstars earned in the other two relays. Coates, Thorne, Olivia Griffin and Sarah Walter pulled out the 200 freestyle relay in 1:47.04 over the Warriors’ quartet of Sovinsky, Maddie Rose, Reilly Wolf and A Clarke, who was 0.13 seconds behind in 1:47.17.
And to close out the meet, C-NS had Fedi and Griffin pair with Walter and Grace Devinney as it got a time of 4:02.51, enough to beat Liverpool, who finished in 4:07.72. This came after Devinney had third-place finishes in both the 200 freestyle (behind Thorne) and the 500 freestyle.
Sovinsky won the shortest and longest races of the meet, needing 24.87 seconds to get away from Griffin (26.22 seconds) and Cassie Baldwin (27.24 seconds) in the 50 freestyle before going to the 500 freestyle and pulling away in 5:22.76 as Thorne, in 5:43.19, got second place.
Testone won twice, too, starting with a time of 2:18.81 in the 200 individual medley that topped Fedi (2:23.08) and Champagne (2:34.32), and then going to the 100 breaststroke and earning that title in 1:12.54, pulling away from Baldwin (1:18.99) in second place.
In the diving competition, Liverpool went 1-2 to make up some ground, Alyssa Vadala earning a season-best 280.90 points and Kelley Townley taking second place with 214.45 points as Coates, doing double duty again, finished third with 211.35 points, just behind Townley.
Also for Liverpool, Rose finished second (2:09.17) to Thorne in the 200 freestyle and second in the 100 freestyle in 58,75 seconds behind Coates, while Fox needed 1:09.36 to get second place to Fedi in the 100 butterfly. Emma Van Houte went 1:10.94 in the 100 backstroke and was second to Champagne.
Now both teams would swim again on Thursday – and both would win, C-NS handling the Syracuse City team 98-75 as Liverpool, back at its home pool, earned a 101-82 victory over the Baldwinsville Bees.
In the C-NS meet with Syracuse, Thorne won three races, taking the 200 IM (2:24.97), 50 freestyle (28.22 seconds) and 100 butterfly (1:06.21), while Fedi contributed titles in the 200 freestyle (2:12.52) and 100 backstroke (1:06.24).
The Northstars went 1-2-3 in the 100 breaststroke, where Griffin won in 1:20.85 over Sara Dembowski (1:25.96) and Victoria Jantsch (1:26.98), and swept the top spots in diving, where Miranda Frascatore, with 236.65 points beat out Coates’ total of 210.70 points.
Amy Bubb was first in the 100 freestyle in 1:03.82, also pairing with Devinney, Walter and Alyssa LaFace to take the 200 medley relay in 2:10.25. To close out the meet, Coates, Thorne, Devinney and Fedi swam the 400 freestyle relay in 4:00.91 for another first-place finish.
To overcome two early relay wins by B’ville, Liverpool turned to Sovinsky, Fox and Rose. In the 200 freestyle, Sovinsky blazed to first place in 1:57.23. later going under the one-minute mark to prevail in the 100 butterfly in 58.21 seconds.
Fox swept the sprints, going 27.01 seconds in the 50 freestyle and 58.64 seconds to take the 100 freestyle, while Rose went 2:31.01 to hold off B’ville’s Kali Sacco (2:33.03) in the 200 freestyle and needing 5:58.93 to prevail in the 500 freestyle. Rose, Sovinsky, Fox and Testone earned first place in the 400 freestyle relay in 3:52.18.
