Whatever the records, it’s always intense when teams from Liverpool and Cicero-North Syracuse get together, as they would in boys swimming Thursday night at the Le Moyne College pool.
And it was the Warriors’ strategy to load up in early races, gather up an insurmountable margin and then cruise from there to a 92-83 victory that was clinched four races before it was over.
Liverpool claimed 10 of the top 12 placements in the first four races on the card to build a 49-13 lead, going 1-2 in the opening 200-yard freestyle relay as Tom Griffin, Johannes Vorbach, Griffin O’Neil and Kyle Richardson won in one minute, 41.90 seconds.
Two straight 1-2-3 finishes followed as, in the 200 freestyle, A.J. Wagner won in 2:02.59 over Evan Kline (2:03.17) and Josh Foley (2:06.12), while in the 200 individual medley J.J. Ross powered to victory in 2:06.08, with Richardson second (2:20.45) and Jack Hyde (2:20.45) taking third place.
Griffin won the 50 freestyle in 21.95 seconds, with Curtis Merrick winning the 100 butterfly in 59.01 seconds and Ryan Wilhelm (1:05.38). In the 400 freestyle relay, Griffin, Vorbach, Richardson and Kline had a time of 3:31.52, ahead of C-NS’s 3:36.93.
There was another top-three sweep in the 100 freestyle as Ross, in 48.91 seconds, prevailed over O’Neil (51.82) and Nguyen (53.25) in the next two spots. And in the diving competition, Liverpool’s Urly Grabovyy prevailed with 169.60 points.
Later in the meet, O’Neil had the top 100 backstroke time of 59.14 seconds ahead of Jack Andrejko (1:03.07) as Vorbach sped through the 100 breaststroke in 1:03.16. Justin Mancuso posted the top500f reestyle time of 5:52.25.
In the 200 freestyle relay, C-NS had a bright moment as Sean Payrot, Connor Petralia, Payton Connors and Eli Ward went 1:33.76 to edge the Warriors’ quartet of Ross, Merrick, Geary and Richardson, who finished in 1:34.12.
Before all this, Liverpool made up a meet against Syracuse postponed earlier this season, just two days after appearing at that same Nottingham High School facility for the Jan. 20 Salt City Athletic Conference championship meet.
Here, the Warriors beat Syracuse 112-73, improving to 9-0 on the season while resting most of its top swimmers. That gave Will Allen a chance to shine as Allen won the 200 freestyle in 2:03.99 and claimed the 500 freestyle in 5:34.11.
O’Neil swam and won the 100 butterfly, edging Vorbach, 1:01.06 to 1:01.69 as Richardson (1:02.39) was third. Jacob Tarr was second and Abe Hurtic third in the 200 freestyle behind Allen.
In the 100 backstroke, O’Neill beat the field in 1:09.58 as Richardson, in 1:04.43, beat out Andrejko (1:05.27) in the 100 backstroke, with Josh Foley third.
Lachlan Eicholzer was second in the 200 IM in 2:28.30, inches ahead of Hyde (2:28.46) as Juilen Brownlow was second in the 50 freestyle in 24.85 seconds. Michael Piraino was second in the 100 freestyle in 57.79 seconds.
Having improved to 10-0 with the win over C-NS, the Warriors only have one regular-season meet left, on Feb. 7 against Oswego.
