While the Cicero-North Syracuse and Liverpool girls swim teams did not quite climb to the top of the standings during the Section III Class A championship meet at Nottingham High School, both sides took home plenty of top honors.
In the Northstars’ case, it finished second with 351 points, topped by the only team to beat them during the regular season, Fayetteville-Manlius, who didn’t win any race, but finished near the top of the standings in all the disciplines on the way to 420 points.
For the Warriors, the third-place finish of 338.5 points, included a handful of victories, starting in Thursday’s Class A diving event, where Alyssa Vadala ran away with the title, earning 451.60 points to qualify for the state meet on Nov. 18-19 at Ithaca College. Vadala’s teammate, Ashleigh Reinhardt, was seventh with 367.70 points.
When the races started a day later, Liverpool’s Sydnie Sovinsky and Ali Testone would both join Vadala as state meet qualifier, with Sovinsky winning twice to share Most Outstanding Swimmer honors with Oswego’s Caitlin Gorton.
By a comfortable margin, Sovinsky won the 50 freestyle in 23.93 seconds to beat Baldwinsville’s Noelle Staso (24.63 seconds) as the Northstars saw Olivia Griffin finish fourth in 25.59 seconds.
Then, in the 500 freestyle, Sovinsky did not let up until, in a time of 5:05.78, she pulled away from C-NS’s Lauren Thorne (5:23.26), who got second place.
Testone’s big moment came in the 200 individual medley, where she roared to first place in 2:13.79, well clear of C-NS’s Brooke Fedi, who was second in 2:19.14. Jaida Fox got sixth place in 2:26.64 for the Warriors.
Later, in the 100 breaststroke, Testone nearly won again, going 1:08.17, just behind Staso (1:07.78) in the top spot, but she would win in the 400 freestyle relay by joining Sovinsky. Fox and Maddie Rose to post 3:42.77, nearly four seconds ahead of F-M’s 3:47.64.
Head-to-head, Liverpool also topped C-NS in the 200 medley relay, where Sovinsky, Testone, Fox and Emma Van Houte prevailed in 1:52.91 as C-NS’s quartet of Lauren Thorne, Carla Champagne, Brooke Fedi and Kiersten Coates posted 1:55.66.
The lone C-NS individual win would come from Thorne, in the 200 freestyle, where she finished in 1:58.98 to fight off West Genesee’s Maddie Zapisek (1:59.78). Liverpool’s Maddie Rose was fourth in 2:04.40.
But the Northstars added a victory in the 200 freestyle relay, where Thorne, joined by Giffin, Fedi and Coates, got a time of 1:41.98 to fend off Auburn (1:42.78) for first place.
Coates went 56.26 seconds in the 100 freestyle to finish second behind Auburn’s Kennedy Wilson (54.80 seconds), while Griffin was sixth in 57.59 seconds and Rose (57.13 seconds) gave Liverpool a fifth-place finish.
In the 100 backstroke, Fedi, in 1:05.15, got second place behind Gorton (58.20 seconds), while Champagne gained third place in 1:05.27, just ahead of Sarah Walter (1:05.62) in fourth place.
Prior to all this, Coates had finished third the day before in the diving event with 394.20 points, while teammate Miranda Frascatore was fourth with 376.80 points. Madeline Thorne (308.60 points) and Laura Gerber (297.75 points) were 10th and 11th, respectively.
On Sunday, all the top sectional teams gathered at Nottingham to battle for the George Falwell Cup – and Liverpool nearly got it, finishing second with 223 points and trailing only F-M’s total of 231 points as C-NS was fourth (199 points) behind Jamesville-DeWitt (219 points) in third place.
The Warriors won four times, including the diving competition where Vadala, with 450.5 points, prevailed over CBA’s Sam Lanzafame (420.9 points) as Coates was fourth with 413.5 points, with Reinhardt (392.55 points) edging Frascatore (392.25 points) for fifth place and Liverpool’s Kelley Townley (375.25 points) in seventh place.
Sovinsky, Fox, Testone and Van Houte went 1:52.91 in the 200 medley relay, just behind CBA, who won in 1:52.25. Also, the Warriors were second in the 400 freestyle relay, where Sovinsky, Rose, Testone and Fox went 3:40.58, but J-D won in 3:39.38.
Again displaying her individual talents, Sovinsky tore through the 50 freestyle to win in 23.92 seconds as Griffin finished fifth in 25.64 seconds, while in the 500 freestyle Sovinsky won in 5:05.26,
In the 200 IM, Testone again prevailed, her time of 2:14.40 just ahead of Fedi’s 2:17.52 in second place. Then she battled Staso again in the 100 breaststroke and, just like in the Class A meet, got second place in 1:08.73 to Staso’s 1:07.04.
Thorne was third in the 500 freestyle in 5:22.42 as one of the many swimmers who chased Sovinsky and also gave C-NS a sixth-place time of 2:01.53 in the 200 freestyle, while Coates was sixth in the 100 freestyle in 56.04 seconds.
