When the new Salt City Athletic Conference was formed, the area’s girls swim teams that were part of the league came up with a way to compete and serve the community at the same time.
Thus, the SCAC Invitational was born, and it took place last Saturday at Nottingham High School, not only bringing top swimmers together, but also supporting charity, in this case hurricane relief and the American Red Cross.
More than $2,000 got raised, and the crowd also saw some tremendous races where swimmers from Jamesville-DeWitt and Fayetteville-Manlius would play a big part.
For the Red Rams, Amelia Hesler blazed to a victory in the 200-yard freestyle in one minute, 59.18 seconds, her best of the season, with teammate Alexis Phillips second in 2:02.53 and Mackenzie Moore fourth in 2:06.42.
Phillips got her turn at the top in the 100 freestyle, blazing to victory in 56.43 seconds ahead of F-M’s Cara Campell (57.06 seconds) in the runner-up spot. Emily Ninestein took fourth place in 58.79 seconds.
Hesler returned to win the 500 freestyle, her time of 5:24.72 more than 13 seconds ahead of the Hornets’ Lindsay Mathews, who got second place in 5:37.94.
Right after that, Hesler, Phillips, Moore and Emma Galletta paired up to go 1:41.29 and beat the field in the 200 freestyle relay. To complete the relay sweep, that same J-D quartet went 3:43.66 to beat the field in the 400 freestyle relay.
Galletta got third place in the 100 butterfly in 1:05.22, while Ninestein was third in the 100 backstroke in 1:07.69 ahead of Sawyer Parker (1:09.21) in fifth place. Parker also finished fifth in the 200 individual medley in 2:30.11.
F-M had Campell, in 25.46 seconds, just behind Auburn’s Kennedy Wilson (25.34) in the 50 freestyle, with Galletta third in 25.73 seconds and Julia Antoine (27.20) in seventh place for the Rams.
Riley Miller earned 395.35 points in the diving competition, second to Oswego’s Laura Bornheimer (415.00 points) as J-D had Lauren Saletsky fourth with 369.35 points and Ailin Lieber-Bendix eighth behind the Hornets’ Francesca Femia in seventh place.
Addie Antshel finished third in the 200 IM in 2:28.06, beating out teammate Morgan Kingsley (2:30.10), who was fourth as Katie Ottaviano and Meghan Seidberg were ninth and 10th, respectively, ahead of Abbey Maring (11th) and Jessie Eisenhunt (12th).
Kingsley made it to third place in the 100 breaststroke in 1:13.20, where J-D had Moore (1:17.83) in fifth place, Grace McGuire in eighth place and Jordan Archer in 10th place, with Ottaviano (1:18.76) getting to ninth place.
Hannah Kellogg was fourth in the 100 butterfly in 1:05.64, with Antshel sixth (1:08.54), Emma Reed seventh (1:10.94) and Nicole Menz in 10th place. Kellogg also got fifth in the 200 freestyle in 2:06.91, with Lindsay Mathews ninth.
In the 200 freestyle relay, Campell, Kellogg, Sasha brown and Michelle Sipple were third in 1:45.93, with that same quartet third in the 400 freestyle relay in 3:54.59. Kingsley, and Reed were fourth in the 200 medley relay in 2:03.92, with J-D taking ninth place in 2:09.83.
Brown was seventh in the 100 freestyle, with Sipple ninth. Saya Hrosar took eighth place in the 100 backstroke (1:10.23) and 10th place in the 500 freestyle, with Maired Egan 10th in the 100 backstroke.
