A great rivalry renewed itself in a memorable regular-season finale in an unfamiliar location, the Cicero-North Syracuse and Liverpool girls swim teams meeting Thursday night at Fulton’s Granby Elementary School, which the Warriors called home this fall.
Over the course of the evening, there were fine performances by both sides, but the Northstars led from the outset and never let the Warriors catch up, ultimately prevailing 103.5-82.5.
That was only the first part of a tremendous 48-hour stretch for C-NS that, on Saturday, culminated with divers Lauren Thorne and Kaitlyn Carroll both qualify for the Nov. 22-23 state championships at Ithaca College.
At the Burgos Diving Invitational, Thorne won it with 467.35 points, just ahead of Carroll’s total of 448.80 points. But both of them surpassed the 440-point total needed to qualify for the state meet.
Liverpool had Sophia Recuparo (367.35) edge Macy Moore (358.20) for sixth place at the Burgos event, with Makenna Dudley 10th and Aija McIntyre taking 13th place.
All of this followed the meet between C-NS and Liverpool, with no race proving closer than the first one.
In the 200-yard medley relay, C-NS’s quartet of Kate Gucciardi, Brittany Wood, Alayna Harbaugh and Bryn Myers needed one minute, 57.36 seconds to edge Liverpool (1:57.54) by just 0.18 seconds as Megan Winn, Delaney Gellert, Jessica Testone and Kaitlyn Thompson swam well for the Warriors.
Gucciardi and Myers both went on to win a pair of individual races. Right after her relay win, Gucciardi took the 200 freestyle in 2:07.95 and then went 1:04.07 in the 100 backstroke to beat out Thompson (1:07.02) in second place.
Myers held off Testone, 25.98 seconds to 26.59, in the 50 freestyle, and completed her sprint sweep by going 57.39 seconds in the 100 freestyle as Thompson (58.70) held off Harbaugh (58.75) for second place.
A high-quality diving competition had SCAC champion Madeline Thorne earn 258.35 points to the 241.30 from teammate Kaitlyn Carroll, with Liverpool’s Sophia Recuparo getting 217.05 points for third place.
Gellert led the Warriors with two wins, going 2:21.74 to dominate the 200 individual medley and 1:13.48 to win the 100 breaststroke over Wood’s 1:18.29.
Testone pulled away to take the 100 butterfly in 1:05.11, with Chloe Brown going 5:53.44 in the 500 freestyle to prevail as teammate Natalie Petit shared second in a dead heat with the Northstars’ Grace Devinney, both going 5:56.33 as Jeanne Vinette (5:56.34) was one-hundredth of a second behind that pair.
C-NS got another relay title when Myers, Gucciardi, Harbaugh and Wood swam the 200 freestyle relay in 1:45.09 to the 1:47.27 from Liverpool. The Warriors did have Brown, Gellert, Petit and Sophia Russo win the 400 freestyle relay in 4:09.03.
Both C-NS and Liverpool entered this meet off victories, as the Northstars moved to 7-2-1 by beating Syracuse City 89-75 on Senior Night at Le Moyne College and the Warriors went to Auburn to defeat the Maroons 93-81 to move to 6-2.
Thorne earned 262.25 points against Syracuse, with Carroll getting 238.15 points. Myers took a turn in the 200 IM and won in 2:32.22, also swimming the 500 freestyle in 6:02.82. Gucciardi had the fastest time in the 100 breaststroke in 1:24.36 to Lillian Thorne’s 1:27.55.
Other wins went to Alexa Kulokowski in the 200 freestyle (2:21.79) and Julia Kulakowski in the 100 butterfly (1:16.29), with Maria Kasarda going 31.43 seconds to edge Kamryn Lenning (31.45) and Heather Leonardi (31.95) in the 50 freestyle. Wood went 1:14.59 in the 100 backstroke.
Liverpool’s win at Auburn again featured Delaney Gellert, who in 2:26.10 went to first place in the 200 IM and also had the quickest time of 1:14.68 in the 100 breaststroke while helping Thompson, Testone and Russo go 1:47.72 to edge the Maroons (1:47.79) in a close 200 freestyle relay.
Russo had finished second in the 200 freestyle and 100 buttterfly, with Testone taking second in the 50 freestyle. Thompson was second in the 100 freestyle in 58.21 seconds to the 57.94 from Auburn’s McKenna Wilson. Brown was second in the 500 freestyle in 5:58.02.
Winn did prevail in the 100 backstroke in 1:08.88 to the 1:09.64 from the Maroons’ Izabella Dilallo as, in diving, the Warriors went 1-2-3, with Macy Moore (199.25) just ahead of Recuparo (195.00) as Aija McIntyre was third.
