With a pair of impressive home victories, the Liverpool boys swim team has quickly surged to the top of the CNY Counties League standings, while Cicero-North Syracuse claimed victory in its season-opening meet, too.
The Warriors hosted Auburn Wednesday night and piled up points in a 100-72 victory over the Maroons, again seeing the duo of Tom Griffin and J.J. Ross each prevail twice in individual races.
Griffin needed two minutes, 13.20 seconds to beat the field in the 200-yard individual medley, while also recording a swift time of 57.58 seconds in the 100 backstroke. Ross prevailed in the two longest events, swimming the 200 freestyle in 1:53.07 and rolling to victory in the 500 freestyle in 5:16.68.
Elsewhere, Curtis Merrick broke the one-minute mark to take the 100 butterfly in 59.58 seconds, while Dan Stapleton was first in the 100 breaststroke in 1:12.94. Michael Lucy earned 170.95 points on the diving board to prevail in that event.
Moving to relays, it was Stapleton and Ross pairing with James Hunter and Kyle Richardson to claim the 200 medley relay in 1:51 flat. Richardson also swam in the 200 freestyle relay, joining Matt Geary, Brennan Mathews and Tyler Hyde to post a time of 1:43.03.
For its season opener at Le Moyne College, C-NS faced the combined Sandy Creek/Pulaski squad, and though it put up strong times throughout the night, it still needed to work all the way to the end to earn an 89-83 victory.
As a stating point, the Northstars had Payton Connors, Owen Flaherty, Nate Ancona and Steve Cooley pair up to go 1:52.40 and win the 200 medley relay. Two races later, Connors, in 2:26.56, beat out Flaherty (2:31.56) by exactly five seconds in the 200 IM.
Cooley, meanwhile, roared to first place in the 50 freestyle in 24.46 seconds, while Eli Ward was second in 25.48 seconds, this after a 200 freestyle where Sean Payrot got the victory in 2:02.37, pulling away from Brandon Caulfield (2:18.19) and the field.
Making it two individual titles, Payrot went 54.48 seconds to pull away in the 100 freestyle, while Flaherty was second after Ryan Heitmann took second place in the 100 butterfly. Michael Ferguson had 202.85 points on the diving board to win over Crispin Coombs (140.65 points) and the field.
Nick Engill needed 5:40.11 to earn first place in the 500 freestyle. Connors, in 1:03.43, beat Heitmann (1:08.25) in the 100 backstroke before Ancona posted 1:16.86 and won the 100 breaststroke over Robert Walter (1:20.02). Cooley, Ward, Tanner Dwyer and Dan Shaw swam the 400 freestyle relay in 4:07.76.
From there, the Northstars would get a bigger test against West Genesee next Wednesday night. Liverpool, meanwhile, has a big showdown with Watertown on Dec. 17 before going head-to-head with C-NS four nights later.
