With the Section III Class C championship secured at its home pool, the Skaneateles girls swim team traveled to Nottingham High School to test itself against all of the top swimmers in Central New York.
The sectional state qualifying meet actually began Saturday with the diving event at West Genesee, where Lakers freshman Carlee Pitman entered the event 16th out of 16 divers who advanced from sectional meets with 315.80 points.
Pitman did quite well here, setting a career mark with 349.40 points to move all the way up to 10th place. Syracuse’s Alexiana Foster won with 456.70 points, having already qualified for this week’s state meet at Ithaca College.
Then it was the swimmers’ turn Sunday at Nottingham, where Skaneateles did best among Class C sides, earning 114 points to finish 11th. Fayetteville-Manlius, who narrowly lost to Jamesville-DeWitt a year ago, claimed the George Falwell Cup this time with 300 points as J-D (222 points) edged CBA (213) for second place.
The big moment for the Lakers came from junior Lily Buchholz in the 100-yard backstroke. Contending all the way, Buchholz reached the podium by finishing third in one minute. 2.80 seconds as CBA’s Darien Tompkins won in 1:00.80, exactly two seconds ahead.
In the 200 medley relay, Buchholz, sophomore Grace King, freshman Lily Comer and eighth-grader Elizabeth Springer made their way to eighth place in 1:57.35, just off their season-best clocking of 1:56.33. In the 400 freestyle relay, Springer and King joined eighth-graders Alice Spaulding and Caitlin Comer to get eighth place in 4:05.59.
Buchholz also had a strong showing in the 100 freestyle, taking eighth place in 56.34 seconds before helping Comer, Spaulding and sophomore Alexis Cottrill earn ninth place in the 200 freestyle relay in a season-best 1:45.33.
Spaulding worked her way to 12th place in the 200 individual medley in 2:26.20. King was 11th in the 500 freestyle in 5:43.58, just off her season-best 5:42.58, and also took 16th in the 100 butterfly in 1:06.36. Rory Comer got 13th place in the 100 breaststroke in 1:14.72, three spots ahead of Spaulding (1:16.70) in 16th place.
