With a superb effort in the Dec. 27 Mexico Diving Invitational, Jamesville-DeWitt/CBA junior Lucas Dekaney earned a berth in March’s New York State Public High School Association championship meet.
All through the first month of the season, Dekaney had taken first in various diving meets head-to-head against other Section III teams, but the Mexico meet provided a chance to do more.
In order to qualify for the state meet, a standard of 450.00 points must be met. Dekaney went well past that mark, finishing with 479.35 points to win the event over 18 challengers.
New Hartford’s Moaz El-Azzazi was second with 420.50 points, just ahead of Weedsport’s David Sterling (418.55 points) in third place. J-D/CBA had Evan Blust finish 17th with 233.10 points, edging teammate Aiden Burlingame (230.90) for that spot.
Following this, J-D/CBA and Fayetteville-Manlius both took part in the Dec. 28 Gary Griffin Sprint Meet at West Genesee, named in honor of the late swim coach who founded the program at Weedsport and led it for 33 years before retiring in 2003 and passing away late in 2017.
Chris Bushnell won both backstroke events. In his specialty, the 100 backstroke, Rourke posted 54.65 seconds, a time good enough to quality for March’s state championship meet, and he also won the 50 backstroke in 25.75 seconds, the only time under 26 seconds.
Nathan Chen gave J-D/CBA a win in the 50 butterfly, going 26.68 seconds to beat out F-M’s Lucas Wieres, who was second in 26.88 seconds.
Bushnell and Chen paired with Conlan Rourke and Colby Porter get second place in the 200 medley relay in 1:45.73 behind Baldwinsville’s winning 1:43.43.
On his own, Rourke went 52.41 seconds in the 100 freestyle, second behind B’ville’s Bailey Ludden (52.24), and also finished fourth in the 50 freestyle in 23.85 seconds. Rourke, Bushnell, Liam Kaplan and Mike Spizuoco were fourth in the 200 freestyle relay in 1:37.85.
For F-M, Tanner Eisenhut was victorious in the 100-yard individual medley, his time of 57.26 seconds enough to beat out Bushnell, who was second in 58.83 seconds as Chen (1:01.74) was sixth.
Elsewhere, Eisenhut went 29.43 seconds in the 50-yard breaststroke to finish second to Baldwinsville’s Nick Schultz (28.57) as Chen was third in 29.55 seconds. In the 100 butterfly, the Hornets’ Tristan Wellner (1:00.56) beat out Wieres (1:01.27) for third place.
Eisenhut was fifth in the 100 backstroke in 59.88 seconds, with Quinn Smith seventh in 1:02.49. Richard Wan got fourth place in the 100 breaststroke in 1:10.97, ahead of J-D/CBA’s Emmanuel Ignacio (1:12.41) in sixth place.
Wellner was fifth in the 50 butterfly in 27.23 seconds. Chris Ziobro, sixth in the 100 breaststroke (1:12.41) behind Wan, finished eighth in the 50 breaststroke in 31.71 seconds.
F-M then defeated Pulaski/Sandy Creek 87-86 last Friday to improve to 6-2 on the season, with Eric Bang winning twice for the Hornets as he went 25.75 seconds in the 50 freestyle and took the100 butterfly in 1:08.64.
Smith contributed a first-place time of 2:01.37 in the 200 freestyle and swam the 100 breaststroke in 1:16.42 as Ziobro was first in the 100 freestyle in 1:01.72.
Miguel Aldana, in 5:37.41, won the 500 freestyle as Wieres was second in 5:46.72. Bang, Nick Montgomery, Ben Perry and Maximilian Du swam the 200 freestyle relay in 1:44.24.
