A young, hungry West Genesee boys swim team would battle its way to a fifth-place finish in last Thursday’s Section III Class A championship meet at Nottingham High School.
Overall, the Wildcats earned 205 points to beat most of the 12-team field. Liverpool, undefeated in the regular season, won with 449 points as 2017 champion Watertown finished second with 362 points.
Individually, WG did best in the diving competition. Sophomore David Puma finished with 388.25 points and took third place as freshman Justin Byrne, with 377.60 points, settled into fourth place.
Only the Jamesville-DeWitt/CBA tandem of Lucas Dekaney and Ryan Smith did better as Dekaney (470.05 points) edged Smith (469.45) by less than a point, though both advanced to the March 2-3 state championships on Long Island.
When it came to the races, the Wildcats had its best finish in the 400-yard freestyle relay. There, senior Matt Shoults was joined by junior Ryan McMahon and two more ninth-graders, Keegan Schauron and Alex Shuron.
That quartet finished in three minutes, 35.44 seconds, bettering its previous time this season by more than five seconds. Watertown (3:16.24) pulled away to win as Liverpool was second in 3:19.74.
Among individual swimmers, Zac Zoanetti had the best effort, making it to fifth place in the 100 breaststroke as his time of 1:03.51 lowered his best of the season by nearly two seconds. McMahon finished ninth in 1:06.35.
Schauron, Zoanetti, Tiernan Guy and James Raymonda were seventh in the 200 medley relay in 1:48.97 as Shuron, Shoults, Matt Shields and Connor Macko were eighth in the 200 freestyle relay in 1:36.62, well ahead of the 1:40.44 they posted earlier this winter.
Shoults rose to sixth place in the 100 freestyle, his time of 50.11 seconds a personal best. Shoults also finished seventh in the 200 freestyle in 1:52.30, with Shuron in 11th place in 1:59.55.
Schauron dipped under a minute in the 100 backstroke and finished seventh in 59.63 seconds as Mike Whitney was 17th and Evan Yeager 18th. Shuron improved to ninth place in the 100 butterfly in 58.70 seconds, his only time under a minute this season.
McMahon finished 14th in the 200 individual medley in 2:21.32. Connor Macko had the best finish in the 50 freestyle, taking 19th place in 25.62 seconds.
Jordan-Elbridge swimmer Nate English competed in the sectional Class C meet and finished third twice. English swam the 200 IM in 2:23 flat and, in the 500 freestyle, improved to 5:24.30.
During Saturday’s sectional state qualifier at Nottingham, WG finished sixth in the race for the George Falwell Cup, earning 127 points as, again, Liverpool finished on top.
Byrne, with a total of 440.05 points, rose to third place in diving behind Evans and Dekaney, with Puma taking fifth place by earning 401.10 points. Parker McIlroy was 12th with 314.95 points.
In the races, WG did best in the 400 freestyle relay, this time seeing Shoults, Shuron, McMahon and Schauron tear to a time of 3:30.65, nearly five seconds faster than what it did in the Class A meet.
Shoults swam the 100 freestyle in 50.32 seconds for seventh place and was 10th in the 200 freestyle in 1:52.52. Zoanetti improved his 100 breaststroke time to 1:03.48 and landed in seventh place, too.
In other races, Schauron went 1:00.18 to finish 11th in the 100 backstroke as Shuron got 12th place in the 100 butterfly in 59.45 seconds. J-E’s English was 13th in the 500 freestyle, his time of 5:21.51 nearly three seconds faster than the Class C meet.
