To some degree, the pressure was off Cicero-North Syracuse divers Maddie Thorne and Kaitlyn Carroll heading into last week’s Section III championships.
Due to the scores they posted while going 1-2 at the Burgos Invitational late in October, Thorne and Carroll had already earned spots in the Nov. 22-23 New York State Public High School Athletic Association championships at Ithaca College.
Still, in both the sectional Class A meet at Nottingham High School and its subsequent overall sectional meet on Sunday, Thorne and Carroll wanted to finish on top.
They would do so, Thorne picking up 443.00 points and Carroll, with 397.55 points, sliding into the second spot. They were also 1-2 overall when the Class B and C divers were added to the final standings.
Behind them, Liverpool divers had strong finishes, with Sophia Recuparo sixth overall and fourth in Class A with 359.40 points.
Macy Moore was fifth in Class and 12th overall with 331.45 points as Makenna Dudley, with 318.40 points, beat out Aija McIntyre (305.15) for the last spot in Saturday’s overall sectional final. Claudia Brown had 237.80 points.
And in that competition, Thorne held off Carroll, 456.45 points to 448.05, in yet another 1-2 C-NS sweep. Recuparo did well, too, getting fourth place with 392.30 points as Moore (342.25) beat out Dudley (340.10) for 12th place.
Amid all this, C-NS and Liverpool swimmers would battle through the weekend for sectional honors, capped by Sunday’s state qualifier where the Northstars earned a spot in the state meet in the 200-yard freestyle relay.
Bryn Myers, Brittany Wood, Kate Gucciardi and Alayna Harbaugh went one minute, 41.56 seconds to beat the state qualifying standard of 1:41.69 and finish in a dead heat with Mexico for second place behind Fayetteville-Manlius, who won in 1:40.16.
In the sectional Class A meet last Friday, it was Liverpool, with 322 points, finishing second, which was two spots ahead of the Northstars (238 points) as F-M, with 556.5 points, prevailed for the fourth year in a row.
No one improved as much as the Warriors’ Delaney Gellert. Though not in the main race of the 100 freestyle, her time of 54.46 seconds beat everyone except Oswego’s Sydney DeLapp (54.22) and nearly qualified her for the state meet, since 54.36 was needed.
Moving to the 100 breaststroke, Gellert finished in 1:09.98, behind only F-M’s Morgan Kingsley, who won in 1:08.37. Later, in the state qualifier, Gellert was fourth in the 100 freestyle in 54.55 seconds and fifth in the 100 breaststroke in 1:11.59.
In the Class A 200 medley relay, Gellert, Megan Winn, Jessica Testone and Kaitlyn Thompson went 1:53.28, just behind F-M’s 1:52.99 as C-NS was third in 1:57.59.
C-NS had Myers go 25.17 seconds in the 50 freestyle, second only to the 24.78 from Kingsley as Harbaugh got eighth place in 25.73 seconds.
Gucciardi was third in the Class A 100 backstroke in 1:02.36, which she improved to 1:02.26 in the state qualifier to take fourth place as Myers was fourth in the 50 freestyle in 25.29 seconds.
Testone, 10th in the Class A 50 freestyle, improved to sixth place in the 100 butterfly in 1:03.66, with Russo eighth in 1:05.09. Russo, in a consolation race, rose all the way to fifth place in the 200 freestyle in 2:03.69, more than six seconds faster than her previous 2:10.04.
The Warriors’ Natalie Petit was fifth in the 500 freestyle in 5:43.17, with Chloe Brown eighth in 5:49.04. Samantha Walker got sixth place in the 200 individual medley in 2:27.37, with Wood 10th and C-NS teammate Julia Kulakowski in 12th place.
Walker also was eighth in the 100 breaststroke in 1:18.30, beating out Kerry Hunter (1:20.23) in 10th place. Thompson was sixth in the 100 backstroke in 1:05.77, with Domenique DeRuijter ninth in 1:06.49.
Wood was seventh in the 100 breaststroke in 1:16.55, Gucciardi had an eighth-place finish in the 100 freestyle in 56.64 seconds, just ahead of Harbaugh (57.43) and Myers (57.54). Jeanne Vinette was 11th in the 500 freestyle in 5:55.88. The Warriors were fifth (4:00.44) and the Northstars eighth (4:14.92) in the 400 freestyle relay.
