Maddie Zapisek was less than a second from a victory in the 200-yard freestyle, highlighting the West Genesee girls swim team’s efforts during Friday’s Section III Class A championship meet at Nottingham High School.
During that 200 freestyle, Zapisek tried to chase down Cicero-North Syracuse’s Lauren Thorne, and did break the two-minute mark, but her time of one minute, 59.78 seconds wasn’t quite enough to get past Thorne, who won with 1:58.98.
Zapisek also contended in the 500 freestyle, where she rose to third place in 5:29.57, though Liverpool’s Sydnie Sovinsky pulled away to win in 5:05.78 and, having added a victory in the 50 freestyle, shared Most Outstanding Swimmer honors with Oswego’s Caitlin Gorton, who won the 50 freestyle and 100 backstroke.
As a team, Zapisek and her fellow Wildcats would claim fifth place with 231 points, just behind Auburn (239 points) in fourth. Fayetteville-Manlius, the undefeated regular-season CNY Counties League champion, did not win a race, but used its depth to get 420 points to outdistance C-NS (351 points) and Liverpool (338.5 points) at the top of the standings.
WG’s Mikki Riley was strong in the 200 individual medley, rising to fourth place in 2:22.93 and also getting fourth place in the 100 butterfly in 1:04.14. Gabby Shuron finished fifth in the 200 freestyle in 2:04.45 behind Zapisek, while Hannah Jasinski was fourth in the 100 breaststroke in 1:13.36.
