West Genesee girls swimmer Maddie Zapisek entered Friday’s Section III Class A championship meet at Nottingham High School with high expectations and plenty of ambition.
And Zapisek managed to exceed those hopes, not just winning twice, but qualifying for the Nov. 16-17 state championships at Ithaca College in both races and earning Swimmer of the Meet honors.
It started in the 200-yard freestyle, where Zapisek had not broken the two-minute mark this season. But here, she tore to a time of 1:55.98, pulling away from Syracuse eighth-grade star Kayla Newman (1:58.62) and beating the state qualifying standard of 1:57.24 by more than a second.
That was just the first part. A classic followed in the 500 freestyle, with Zapisek spending the entire race trying to hold off Newman, right behind her.
They nearly hit the wall together, but Zapisek, in 5:12.36. held on, with Newman posting 5:12.56 as the two swimmers, pushing each other, got under the 5:14.65 state qualifying standard.
Anna Ivery gave the Wildcats a third victory at this sectional meet in the 50 freestyle, going 25.05 seconds to prevail by a comfortable margin and Hannah Murdock made her way to fourth place in 25.80 seconds. Ivery also finished eighth in the 100 butterfly in 1:06.10.
WG finished fifth in the Class A team standings with 265 points, just behind Auburn (267.5) and Cicero-North Syracuse (272) in the standings. F-M, undefeated in the regular season, won its third straight sectional title with 487 points as Liverpool (311.5 points) finished second.
Ivery joined Maggie Smith, Haley Hagadorn and Mikki Riley to get third place in the 200 medley relay in 1:56.56, with the Wildcats also third in the 200 freestyle relay as Zapisek, Ivery, Murdock and Hagadorn posted 1:42.28. Zapisek, Murdock, Taylor McFadden and Julianna Lisi were fourth in the 400 freestyle relay in 3:58.22.
Hagadorn finished fourth in the 100 breaststroke in 1:11.08, where Devon Burnside was 10th (1:17.56), with Murdock fifth in the 100 freestyle in 57.25 seconds. Riley got a seventh place finish in the 200 individual medley in 2:26.61 as Smith was eighth in the 100 backstroke in 1:06.39.
