The first taste of post-season competition for the Liverpool and Cicero-North Syracuse boys swim teams took place last Friday with their appearance in the Salt City Athletic Conference championships at Nottingham High School.
In particular, the Warriors had seven runner-up finishes, starting with the 200-yard medley relay. Griffin Merkling, Kyle Richardson, Brandon Nguyen and Curtis Merrick went one minute, 42.75 seconds, but Baldwinsville won in a state meet-qualifying time of 1:40.48.
Right after, in the 200 freestyle, Richardson, in 1:59.26, was second to Auburn’s Sam Carbonaro (1:51.48) as Brodie Powers finished seventh in 2:02.70 and Jack Andrejko (2:06.57) was ninth.
Contending in the 50 freestyle, Julien Brownlow finished in 22.90 seconds, beating out Merrick (22.93) for second place, but both trailed Oswego’s J.D. Thomas, who prevailed in 22.81 seconds.
Uriy Grabovyy earned 375.15 points on the diving board, but he also finished second behind West Genesee’s Justin Byrne, who went to the top spot with 396.10 points.
The theme continued when Merrick, Merkling, Nguyen and Brownlow roared to a time of 1:30.23 in the 200 freestyle relay, just missing the state qualifying standard of 1:30.12 and just behind B’ville’s winning 1:29.61.
Merkling got closer to reaching the state meet in the 100 backstroke, going 55.34 seconds when 53.38 was needed. Andrejko got third place in 1:01.05, Jack Hyde was sixth (1:03.81) and Simon Van Houte ninth (1:05.11) as Jamesville-DeWitt/CBA’s Chris Bushnell won in 53.38 seconds.
To cap off this day of second-place efforts, Merrick, Nguyen, Brownlow and Merkling swam the 400 freestyle relay in 3:25.95, but was again trailing B’ville, who pulled away in 3:19.33.
Nguyen got seventh place in the 100 freestyle in a season-best 51.24 seconds, with Chase Parry seventh in the 500 freestyle in 6:14.33, inches ahead of Andrew Griffin (6:14.36) in eighth place. Hyde finished 11th and Brayden Catalina 12th in the 100 butterfly.
Logan Petralia, John Harbaugh, Adam Rein and Seaver Schultz were sixth in the 200 medley relay in 1:52.69, right before Harbaugh took sixth place in the 200 individual medley in 2:26.34 and Rein got seventh place in the 100 breaststroke in 1:12.32.
Petralia was seventh in the 50 freestyle in 23.95 seconds and eighth in the 100 backstroke (1:05.04), also pairing with Petralia, Harbaugh and Bruce Hepel to get sixth place in the 200 freestyle relay in 1:39.74. Hepel, Dillon Johnson, Connor Burke and Dom Bagozzi were seventh (3:55.57) in the 400 freestyle relay.
Liverpool went from here to facing long-time rival J-D/CBA a week later, and improving to 11-0 on the season, the Warriors prevailed 95-87 over the Red Rams.
The big story for Liverpool was what it did in the 200 freestyle relay. Merkling, Brownlow, Nguyen and Curtis Merrick roared to first place in 1:29.42 and, by doing so, broke a J-D pool record and qualified for the state meet in that event.
Chris Merrick, meanwhile, made a big splash when he won the 100 butterfly in 55.04 seconds, this after Merkling took the 200 IM in 2:03.44 and Richardson won the 200 freestyle in 1:57.80.
Brownlow, in 22.41 seconds, was just behind Bushnell (22.34) in the 50 freestyle as Merkling sped to 55.92 seconds in the 100 backstroke, only to have Bushnell beat him with 53.10 seconds.
Will Allen went 5:29.02 in the 500 freestyle, second behind J-D/CBA’s Nate Wales (5:25.66), while Evan Kline was second in the 100 freestyle in 54.73 seconds, with Powers (56.48) beating out Van Houte (56.86) for third place.
Grabovyy was second in diving with 171.70 points. Allen, Powers, Nguyen and Jack Hyde swam the 400 freestyle relay in 3:47.74, while Merkling, Richardson, Nguyen and Curtis Merrick went 1:41.42, just behind J-D/CBA (1:40.76) in the 200 medley relay.
