As they do each winter, the Liverpool and Cicero-North Syracuse boys swim teams would battle head-to-head last Tuesday night, renewing their neighborhood rivalry.
And once again the Warriors came out on top, prevailing 103-74 over the Northstars by having a host of swimmers contribute in various events.
It started with Griffin Merkling, Brandon Nguyen, Jack Hyde and Ismar Latifagic going one minute, 54.01 seconds to take first place in the 200-yard medley relay before Merkling sped through the 100 backstroke in 56.45 seconds.
Will Allen won the 200 freestyle in 2:03.34 and Jack Wilhelm took the 200 individual medley in 2:25.59. Kyle Richardson won the 100 breaststroke in 1:15.03, inches ahead of C-NS’s Adam Rein (1:15.10) at the line.
In the sprints, Ian Denny finished first in the 50 freestyle in 25.25 seconds as Evan Kline won the 100 freestyle in 55.01 seconds over Denny (56.98) and Hyde (57.48).
Jack Andrejko went 1:03.07 to win the 100 butterfly and helped Merkling, Ngyuen and Denny go 1:38.18 in the 200 freestyle relay as Richardson, joined by Curtis Merrick, Simon VanHoute and A.J. Wagner, went 3:51.92 in the 400 freestyle relay.
C-NS did get a victory in the diving competition, where Dan Shaw, with 176.50 points, beat out the Warriors’ Uriy Grabovyy (164.00). Logan Petralia, in 5:47 flat, and Connor Burke (5:59.97) went 1-2 in the 500 freestyle.
Elsewhere, Petralia was second in the 100 backstroke in 1:04.11, with Dom Bagozzi and John Harbaugh in a dead heat for second place in the 50 freestyle, each finishing in 25.65 seconds.
Before all this, Liverpool and C-NS had both taken on Fayetteville-Manlius the previous week at Cazenovia College, with the Warriors prevailing 99-82 but the Northstars falling to the Hornets 84-78.
Liverpool’s meet with F-M included Grabovyy’s unique double as Grabovyy earned 201.55 points to prevail in diving, and then went to the 100 freestyle and, in 53.72 seconds, beat out Kyle Richardson (54.27) for the top spot.
Andrejko, in 59.99 seconds, edged Merrick (1:01.67) in the 100 backstroke after Merrick prevailed in the 100 butterfly in 58.31 seconds.
Allen was victorious in the 200 freestyle in 2:01.34, with Merkling first in the 200 IM in 2:04.99 to edge F-M’s Tanner Eisenhut (2:05.30) for that top spot.
Merkling paired with Richardson, Wilhelm and Julien Brownlow to win the 200 medley relay in 1:48.29. Moving on to the 200 freestyle relay, Richardson, Brownlow, Nguyen and Michael Piraino prevailed in 1:35.48 as Merkling, Andrejko, Brownlow and Kline went 3:33.75 in the 400 freestyle relay.
In the meet between C-NS and F-M, the Northstars constantly finished second in close races, starting with the 200 medley relay, where Harbaugh, Rein, Dillon Johnson and Bruce Hepel went 1:51.11, but the Hornets (1:51.10) won by one-hundredth of a second.
This also happened in the 200 freestyle relay, where Hepel, Petralia, Bagozzi and Seaver Schultz went 1:43.07 but F-M (1:42.99) prevailed by eight-hundredths of a second.
Hepel also finished second in the 50 freestyle (25.40 seconds) and 100 freestyle (55.03 seconds), trailing F-M’s Nate Montgomery in each event. Petralia was second in the 200 freestyle (2:03.69) as Johnson went 1:11.24 in the 100 backstroke
After beating C-NS, Liverpool would face Oswego Friday and, improving to 5-0, defeated the Buccaneers 106-79, with Nguyen going 53.21 seconds to lead a 1-2-3 sweep of the 100 freestyle with Kline (55.57) and Wilhelm (57.69).
Allen was first in the 500 freestyle in 5:22.75, with Caleb Netto winning the 200 freestyle in 2:05.08. Andrejko swam the 100 backstroke in 1:00.56 as Andrew Griffin went 1: 11.06 to win the 100 breaststroke.
As that went on, C-NS met Jamesville-DeWitt/CBA and took a 97-83 defeat, the only individual wins coming from Harbaugh, who took the 200 IM in 2:24.40 and the 100 butterfly in 1:03.95.
Petralia was second (52.81 seconds) to Conlan Rourke (52.29) in the 100 freestyle, and also was runner-up in the 200 freestyle in 1:58.80 to Rourke’s 1:56.55. Johnson was second in the 100 backstroke and Schultz second in the 50 freestyle.
