It has now reached a point where the Skaneateles girls swim team is on a par with far more established programs from larger schools, and can beat them head-to-head.
Further proof of this was offered last Tuesday night at the Community Center pool, where the Lakers, winning all but two of the events, overcame the superior depth of West Genesee and recorded a 97-89 victory over the Wildcats.
The basis for this victory was Skaneateles sweeping to victories in all three relays. This started with the 200 medley, where Lily Buchholz, Ashley Drotar, Leah King and Rose Keady pulled away in a time of 2:00.88, with WG only finishing in 2:10.94.
Later on, the 200 freestyle relay proved closer, but Drotar, Keady, Leah King and Rachel Teixeira still, in a time of 1:49.48, beat the Wildcats (1:50.48) by exactly one second. And to wrap up the victory, Buchholz, Teixeira, Leah King and Grace King went 3:55.72 in the 400 freestyle relay as, again, WG finished second, in 3:58.28.
But this spread to individual events, too, starting with the 50 freestyle, where Drotar recorded a winning time of 27.68 seconds to beat the Wildcats’ Jenna Mellen (28.34) and continued in a close diving competition where Kyra Cottrill earned 169.7 points to hold off WG’s Kathleen Draveck (168.8 points) for the title.
Leah King would win two of the next three races, going 1:04.15 to pull away from the Wildcats’ Nikki Riley (1:06.40) in the 100 butterfly before a 500 freestyle where King won a close duel with WG’s Maddie Zapisek, finishing in 5:40.43 to Zapisek’s 5:41.47.
In between those races, Buchholz (59.31 seconds) and Grace King (1:00.12) went 1-2 in the 100 freestyle, with Drotar fourth, Later, in the 100 backstroke, Buchholz won in 1:11.81, getting away from WG’s Maggie Smith (1:14.80) and Maggie Linton (1:14.81) as Keady held off Hannah Jasinski, 1:13.71 to 1:14.92, in the 100 breaststroke.
Skaneateles couldn’t celebrate too much, though, because two days later it would have to go to Le Moyne College to face Christian Brothers Academy, itself coming off a close 94-92 defeat to Jamesville-DeWitt on the same night the Lakers topped West Genesee.
Here, the Lakers couldn’t pull off back-to-back wins, but even this 95-85 defeat to the Brothers had plenty of highlights for Skaneateles, starting with the 200 freestyle, where Buchholz won a thriller, edging CBA’s Lauren Kelly 2:10.07 to 2:10.10, the margin three-hundredths of a second.
Leah King followed by holding off Darien Tompkins, 2:27.39 to Tompkins’ 2:29.20, in the 200 IM, but the Brothers won each of the next seven events, including King’s second-place finish in the 50 freestyle, before Keady (1:15.12) held off Kelly (1:16.41) in the 100 breaststroke. The Lakers won the closing 400 freestyle relay in 4:16.12.
Buchholz, in the 100 backstroke, swam 1:07.31 and fell to Tompkins (1:07.35) by four-hundredths of a second. Grace King took second in the 500 freestyle in 5:57.74, with Femano second and Teixeira third in the 100 freestyle and Drotar second (27.71 seconds) in the 50 freestyle, again with Teixeira third.
Gabriella Capozza had 195.25 points in diving to trail CBA’s Sam Lanzafame (205.05 points). Leah King got the runner-up spot in the 100 butterfly behind Juila Torell, who won in 1:02.10 and also took the 500 freestyle in 5:49.68 as her teammate, Tessa Queri, won the 50 and 100 freestyle to sweep the sprints.
Keady, Drotar, Buchholz and Leah King swam the 200 medley relay in 2:00.55, but CBA prevailed in 1:58.33. It was the same in the 200 freestyle relay, where Teixeira joined Keady, Drotar and King and the Lakers finished in 1:49.41, behind the Brothers’ 1:47.53.
Having endured this busy stretch (Skaneateles also competed in the Watertown Invitational on Sept. 18), Skaneateles goes to Cazenovia College Wednesday to face Fayetteville-Manlius before hosting Holland Patent two days later.
