West Genesee’s boys swim team has spent most of its time in recent weeks in intense practice sessions, all in preparation for this Thursday’s Section III Class A championships at Nottingham.
When the Wildcats took on Liverpool last Tuesday night, it was the team’s first meet since Jan. 24, and WG could not keep the Warriors from completing an undefeated regular season, improving to 12-0 by claiming a 102-76 decision.
One place where the Wildcats did have a decided advantage over Liverpool was in diving, where it finished 1-2-3, led by Justin Byrne, who posted 250.25 points to edge David Puma (238.95 points). Parker McIlroy finished third with 207.20 points.
WG’s lone win in a race came in the 200-yard freestyle relay, where Ryan McMahon, Keegan Scharoun, Alex Shuron and Tiernan Guy went one minute, 37.85 seconds to beat out the Warriors (1:38.70) by less than a second.
McMahon, in 2:09.36, was second to Brandon Nguyen (2:08.01) in the 200 individual medley, with Shuron second in the 100 freestyle in 59.33 seconds. Declan Braun went 1:15.40 in the 100 breaststroke.
Julien Brownlow led Liverpool, going 22.36 seconds to take the 50 freestyle and beating Nguyen, 49.85 seconds to 50.82, in the 100 freestyle, while Curtis Merrick had a quick time of 54.63 seconds in the 100 butterfly.
Barely 24 hours later, WG had another meet, against Cicero-North Syracuse, and had far more success, winning most of the individual events and putting away the Northstars 99-87.
It got started with McMahon, Guy, Scharoun and Cameron Chao going 1:48.71 to win the 200 medley relay over C-NS (1:50.20) and concluded, in the 400 freestyle relay, with McMahon, Scharoun, Shuron and Matt Barrington going 3:45.22 to win that race.
In between, plenty of good things happened for the Wildcats, including two wins apiece for Shuron, Scharoun and McMahon.
In the 200 freestyle, Shuron prevailed in 2:00.57, and later went 59.34 seconds to beat the field in the 100 butterfly. Scharoun beat Barrington, 2:22.48 to 2:26.22, in the 200 IM, while also winning the 100 backstroke in 58.86 seconds.
With one of his best 500 freestyle races of the winter, McMahon took that race in 5:06.72, and would also dominate the field in the 100 breaststroke, prevailing in 1:05.43.
Byrne, with 251.03 points, topped Puma (220.57) and Bryan Reichert (187.13) in diving, while in the 200 freestyle relay Shuron, Guy, Jackson Craig and Matt Shields finished second in 1:40.82.
