Unstoppable in the regular season, the Fayetteville-Manlius girls swim team did not let up one bit once it traveled to Nottingham High School for Friday’s Section III Class A championships.
Top finishes in every individual event, plus a pair of relay titles, helped the Hornets claim the sectional title for the third year in a row, its total of 487 points well clear of runner-up Liverpool, who was second with 311.5 points.
The success went beyond amassing points, too. In the 200-yard freestyle relay, F-M qualified for the Nov. 16-17 state championships at Ithaca College.
Cara Campell, Morgan Kingsley, Michelle Sipple and Hannah Kellogg finished in one minute, 41.66 seconds, just three-hundredths of a second faster than the 1:41.69 qualifying standard, and beat out Auburn (1:42.24) and West Genesee (1:42.28) to prevail in the race, too.
F-M was also victorious in the 400 freestyle relay, where Campell, Kellogg, Lindsay Mathews and Emma Luttrell pulled away to post a top time of 3:42.80, more than four seconds ahead of Liverpool’s second-place 3:46.84.
Luttrell and Mathews earned individual titles, too. In the 100 butterfly, Luttrell would claim a close duel with Auburn’s Claire Alexander, winning in 1:01.59 to Alexander’s 1:01.80 as Addie Antshel gained third place in 1:02.04 and Kellogg was fourth in 1:02.075.
Mathews claimed her title in the 200 individual medley, finishing in 2:12.88, well clear of Cicero-North Syracuse’s Brooke Fedi (2:15.30) in the runner-up spot, with Katie Ottaviano fifth in 2:21.10. Mathews was also third in the 500 freestyle in 5:17.61, with Luttrell fourth in 5:23.90.
After all that, in the 100 breaststroke, Kingsley would, in a time of 1:09.85, again hold off Fedi (1:10.22), while Ottaviano made her way to third place in 1:10.75. Caitlin Rameas was seventh (1:15.36) and Meghan Seidberg eighth in 1:16.38.
Kellogg gained third place in the 200 freestyle in 2:01.06 right after Luttrell, Kingsley, Saya Hrosar and Michelle Sipple finished second (1:53.71), less than a second behind Auburn (1:53.02), in the 200 medley relay.
In 25.41 seconds, Campell was second to West Genesee’s Anna Ivery (25.05) in the 50 freestyle, with Kingsley getting to third place in 25.72 seconds. Alessandra Manicone earned 371.55 points in diving to take fifth place.
In the 100 freestyle, Campell took fourth place in 56.84 seconds, while Sipple finished eighth. Hrosar needed 1:03.58, swimming in an outside line, to claim third place in the 100 backstroke as Jessey Eisenhut was fifth in 1:05.65.
