Quick times, and strong team efforts, led to more early-season wins earned by the Jamesville-DeWitt/CBA and Fayetteville-Manlius boys swim teams in the first full week of December.
J-D/CBA needed every bit of its skill to turn back Baldwinsville last Tuesday night, with a pair of timely sweeps the key to a 96-87 victory over the same Bees side that beat F-M a week earlier.
Spencer Schultz got the Red Rams going when he won the 200-yard freestyle in one minute, 54.32 seconds, just before Chris Bushnell needed 2:08.25 to beat B’ville’s Nick Schultz (2:12.98) in the 200 individual medley.
The Bees did not challenge in diving, so J-D/CBA swept the top three as Lucas Dekaney, with 233.05 points, edged Ryan Evans (227.30) as Evan Blust finished third.
In the 100 butterfly, Schultz, in 54.67 seconds, beat out Alex Hiltbrand (56.02), who had earlier won the 50 freestyle, 23.00 seconds to Owen Farchione’s 23.67. Farchione took second in the 100 freestyle in 51.74 seconds, inches behind Ryan Hiltbrand (51.69).
It turned for good in J-D/CBA’s favor when Bushnell, Farchione, Schultz and Conlan Rourke went 1:36 flat in the 200 freestyle relay, just ahead of B’ville’s 1:36.67.
Then Bushnell, going 57.68 seconds in the 100 backstroke, finished ahead of Liam Kaplan (1:10.04) and Colby Porter (1:13.74) in another 1-2-3 Rams sweep, a margin the Bees could not overcome despite winning the last two events. David Chen was second in the 100 breaststroke.
As this was going on, F-M was at the Le Moyne College pool, taking on Cicero-North Syracuse and roaring its way to a 99-85 victory over the Northstars.
During the first four races, the Hornets kept pace despite only one victory, Michael Araujo taking the 200 freestyle in 2:06.39. Then Isaiah Haywood (157.20 points) and Michael Magee (140.00 points) went 1-2 in the diving competition.
From there, Tanner Eisenhut took charge, beating the field in the 100 butterfly in 1:00.27 as Tristan Wellner (1:04.31) was second. Then Eisenhut won the 100 breaststroke in 1:06.12 as he paired with Araujo, Chase Montgomery and Nico Foster to get first place in the 200 freestyle relay in 1:39.33.
C-NS won all of the other events, though Richard Wan was second in the 200 IM (2:20.25) and 100 backstroke (1:04.68). Miguel Aldana got second place in the 500 freestyle in 5:52.27 as Agrim Mangla was second in the 50 freestyle and Cooper Hughes got second place in the 100 freestyle.
F-M would have to go up against undefeated Liverpool on Friday night, and take a 97-81 defeat to the Warriors, though it did get a pair of individual titles.
Eisenhut had one of them, swimming the 200 IM in 2:11.53 to edge Liverpool’s Brandon Nguyen (2:11.80) for first place, while Chris Ziobro took the diving competition.
Liverpool was led by Tom Griffin, who took the 200 freestyle (1:51.58) and 100 butterfly (57.38 seconds), while F-M had Wan finish second in the 200 freestyle and Wellner take second in the 100 butterfly.
That same Friday night, J-D/CBA improved to 4-0 by defeating Fulton 93-85.
Bushnell and Farchione each won twice, with Bushnell going 2:09.93 in the 200 IM and 57.48 seconds to win the 100 butterfly as Farchione won the 200 freestyle in 2:02.23 and was first in the 100 freestyle in 52.87 seconds.
Elsewhere, Nathan Chen won the 500 freestyle in 5:42.71 and paired with Bushnell, Schultz and David Chen to take the 200 medley relay in 1:47.31. Schultz won the 50 freestyle (23.38 seconds) and, with Bushnell, Rourke and Farchione, went 1:36.01 in the 200 freestyle relay.
