Leave it to the Christian Brothers Academy girls swim team to complete a unique trifecta.
With Fayetteville-Manlius (in Class A) and Jamesville-DeWitt (in Class B) already crowned as Section III champions at their respective meets, the Brothers did the same, dethroning defending champion Skaneateles at the Lakers’ home pool Friday night.
With 486 points, CBA gradually pulled away from Skaneateles, who with 387 points had to settle for the runner-up spot as both of them were far clear of Lowville (206 points) in third place.
The winning had actually started at Nottingham High School on Thursday night, where CBA’s Sam Lanzafame not only got first place in the Class C diving competition, her 447.05 points was good enough to qualify for the Nov. 18-19 state championship meet at Ithaca College.
With that as a starting point, the Brothers had to watch Skaneateles win each of the first three races, though Darien Tompkins, Lauren Kelly, Tessa Queri and Julia Torell were a close second (1:52.81) to the Lakers (1:51.83) in a quick 200-yard medley relay.
Yet even in the 200 freestyle, where Skaneateles’ Rachel Teixeira won in 2:01.96, CBA’s Katie Toole finished second in 2:07.60, with Molly Oyer fourth (2:10.70) and Katelyn Wendt (2:11.43) fifth, all of them gaining valuable points as Abbey Poore was sixth (2:33.37) in the 200 individual medley.
Queri and Kelly would provide another turning point in the 50 freestyle, going 1-2 in the standings as Queri pulled away to win in 24.87 seconds and Kelly, in 26.63 seconds, edged the Lakers’ Ashley Drotar (26.66 seconds) for that runner-up spot.
Following that up, the Brothers again got a sweep at the top in the 100 butterfly, where Torell broke the one-minute mark and prevailed in 59.34 seconds as Tompkins rolled to second place in 1:05.19. Grace O’Connor was sixth in 1:07.05 to give CBA even more points.
More top placements followed, with Queri fourth (57.15 seconds) and Oyer fifth (58.96 seconds) in the 100 freestyle before Poore earned second place in the 500 freestyle in 5:43.26 to Teixeira’s 5:30.24 and Toole (5:47.80) was fourth.
CBA essentially clinched the title in the next two races. Queri, Wendt, Torell and Kelly would take the 200 freestyle relay in 1:46.75, more than two seconds ahead of Skaneateles (1:48.82), followed by Torell’s second individual victory in the 100 backstroke in 1:02.20, with Tompkins taking third place in 1:03.27.
To close it out, Toole, Wendt, Oyer and Tompkins swam the 400 freestyle relay in 3:57.89 as the Lakers won that race in 3:50.46, while Kelly was third in the 100 breaststroke in 1:13.06 and Wendt (1:17.26) got fifth place.
In Sunday’s state qualifier at Nottingham High School, CBA would finish fifth, with 198 points, not far from the winning total of 231 points posted by Fayetteville-Manlius. The Brothers won the opening 200 medley relay as Torell, Queri, Kelly and Tompkins posted 1:52.25, edging Liverpool (1:52.91) for the top spot.
Lanzafame was second in the diving competition with 420.9 points behind Liverpool’s Alyssa Vadala (452.5 points), while Torell got second place in the 100 butterfly in 1:00.54, far off the winning 55.78 posted by Oswego’s Caitlin Gorton. Later, in the 100 backstroke, Torell finished in 1:02.24 and again was second to Gorton (57.98 seconds) as Tompkins got fourth place in 1:03.30.
