The pair of victories earned by West Genesee girls swimmer Maddie Zapisek in last Friday’s 2 Section III Class A championships was repeated at that same Nottingham High School pool two days later in the sectional state qualifying meet.
Zapisek had already earned spots in this week’s state championships at Ithaca College in the 200-yard freestyle and 500-yard freestyle, but now took on the top swimmers from all classes in her specialties.
The 200 freestyle came first, with Zapisek facing her main challenge from Sauquoit Valley’s Caitlyn Longway. In one minute, 55.87 seconds, Zapisek improved her sectional Class A time of 1:55.98 and edged Longway (1:56.33) by less than half a second.
What followed, in the 500 freestyle, was another closely-fought race, only now Zapisek had to chase down New Hartford’s Kim MacDonald in one of the most exciting races of the season.
For 450 yards, MacDonald stayed out in front, and was up by 1.6 seconds before Zapisek, with a strong closing kick, made up all the ground and then touched the wall at 5:12.11 to beat out MacDonald’s 5:12.27.
All of this helped West Genesee to a fourth-place finish in the race for the George Falwell Cup with 150 points, edging Liverpool (147 points) for that spot. Fayetteville-Manlius, narrowly beaten by Jamesville-DeWitt a year ago, won this time with 300 points to the Red Rams’ second-place total of 222 points.
Having won the sectional Class A race in the 50 freestyle in 25.05 seconds, Anna Ivery could not quite match that here, her time of 25.25 seconds putting her in fourth place as CBA’s Lauren Kelly won in 24.89 seconds. Ivery also was 19th in the 100 butterfly.
Hannah Murdock was sixth in the 50 freestyle in 25.64 seconds as Marcellus junior Grace Femano finished seventh in 26.02 seconds. In the 100 freestyle, Murdock finished 15th in 58.15 seconds as Femano got 10th place in the 100 backstroke in 1:04.36.
Swimming in the 200 freestyle relay, Zapisek, Ivery, Murdock and Miki Riley went 1:42 flat to get sixth place after going 1:42.28 earlier this season. Haley Hagadorn finished sixth in the 100 breaststroke in 1:11.27.
Ivery, Hagadorn, Anna Ivery and Miki Riley to finish seventh in the 200 medley relay in 1:55.86, improving upon a previous 1:56.56. Riley was 14th in the 200 individual medley in 2:28.34.
Zapisek, Murdock, Julianna Lisi and Taylor McFadden were 10th in the 400 freestyle relay in 4:00.03. Marcellus had Grace Comer finish 23rd in the 500 freestyle in 5:57.81, two spots behind Westhill’s Allison Lyons (5:55.97) in 21st place.
