Given their opposition, the Cicero-North Syracuse and Liverpool girls swim teams were not going into ease into competition in 2017.
For the Northstars, a battle with Baldwinsville at Le Moyne College went well as C-NS rolled to a 96-68 victory, but the Warriors had a different result as reigning league and Section III Class A champion Fayetteville-Manlius handled them 97-81 at the Cazenovia College pool the Hornets call home.
In its first race, the 200-yard medley relay, C-NS prevailed as Grace Devinney, Brooke Fedi, Sarah Walter and Olivia Griffin finished in 2:00.43, and all of them would contribute much more as the meet against B’ville continued.
Devinney went right from the opening relay to taking first place in the 200 freestyle in two minutes, 12.45 seconds over B’ville’s Clare Burke (2:14.65), following up later by winning the 500 freestyle in 5:58.70.
Griffin went 26.46 seconds to prevail in the 50 freestyle, with Alyssa LaFace second in 27.26 seconds, and then Griffin edged LaFace, 1:00.14 to 1:00.52, in the 100 freestyle as Fedi needed 2:19.73 to claim first place in the 200 individual medley and then swam the 100 breaststroke in 1:11.76.
Madeline Thorne (183.80 points) and Samra Jasio (153.25 points) went 1-2 in diving, with Carly Tolhurst third with 146.65 points. Walter swam the 100 backstroke in 1:10.11 after helping Fedi, LaFace and Griffin win the 200 freestyle relay in 1:50.83.
Meanwhile, at Cazenovia College, Liverpool found it difficult to counter a wave of F-M swimmers that won all but one of the early events. Ali Testone provided the exception for the Warriors, winning the 200 IM in a clocking of 2:21.48 and also winning the 100 breaststroke in 1:12.76 late in the meet as Marissa Pisegna finished second.
The Hornets piled up points with 1-2 finishes in four early events plus a win in the 200 medley relay in 1:59.97, and then it had top-two sweeps in the 100 and 500 freestyle, too, after Jessica Testone got second place for the Warriors in the 100 butterfly in 1:07.37.
By the time Megan Winn earned first-place points in the 100 backstroke in 1:11.18 over Lauren Flynn (1:13.60), F-M had already clinched the win. Cara Campell led the Hornets, winning the 50 freestyle in 26.36 seconds and the 100 freestyle in 57.22 seconds,
C-NS would get its shot at F-M Friday night at Cazenovia College after facing Syracuse on Tuesday night. Liverpool would take on Jamesville-DeWitt Thursday night.
