For years and decades, the Liverpool boys swim team has known that, in order to stay atop the Central New York ranks, it had to prove better than fellow powerhouse Jamesville-DeWitt/CBA.
With each side leading in their respective league standings, the Warriors and Red Rams clashed again Tuesday night at J-D Middle School, and Griffin O’Neil’s pair of race wins helped Liverpool improve to 9-0 on the season and prevail by a 97-88 margin.
O’Neil went to the forefront in the 200-yard freestyle, finishing in one minute, 56.69 seconds to pull away from J-D/CBA’s Nathan Basch (2:00.38) in second place. Then, in the 500 freestyle, O’Neil tore to victory in 5:16.77, with the Rams’ Connor Ball (5:31.19) far back in second place.
Tom Griffin also won twice, tearing to a time of 49.84 seconds in the 100 freestyle to beat out J-D/CBA’s Jeff Gabriel (51.66 seconds) and then, moving to the 100 backstroke, Griffin roared to a time of 55.51 seconds to beat the Rams’ Owen Farchione (58.39 seconds) and Chris Bushnell (58.80 seconds) for the title.
Three different times, J.J. Ross finished second in events. He finished in 23.25 seconds in the 50 freestyle, but Gabriel won in 22.85 seconds, while in the 100 butterfly Ross had a good time of 56.34 seconds, with J-D/CBA’s Spencer Schultz roaring to first place in 53.99 seconds.
However, in the 200 freestyle relay, Ross paired with Curtis Merrick, Matt Geary and James Hunter and Liverpool, in 1:32.15, held off J-D/CBA (1:32.89) for a hard-earned victory. Merrick had already won the 200 individual medley in 2:08.24, with teammate Brandon Nguyen third in 2:22.05.
Brennan Matthews earned 222.0 points in diving, third behind the J-D/CBA duo of Ryan Evans (280.65 points) and Lucas Dekaney (247.05 points). Schultz led J-D/CBA, not only by winning the 100 butterfly, but taking the 100 breaststroke in 1:04.94 over teammate Luca Bebla (1:05.43).
To close out the meet, Liverpool would gain first place in the 400 freestyle relay, seeing Justin Mancuso, Michael Piraino, Tyler Hyde and Evan Kline finish in 3:52.99. Earlier, Griffin, O’Neil, Ross and Hunter swam to a time of 1;44.83 in the 200 medley relay, but J-D/CBA prevailed in 1:41.16.
