Claiming the Section III Class C championship was sweet enough for the Skaneateles girls swim team. Doing so in front of a home crowd at the Community Center YMCA was even better.
That’s what the Lakers did last Friday night, picking up 467 points, well clear of Lowville, who with 296 points claimed the runner-up spot as Cooperstown (256 points) edged Holland Patent (252 points) for third place.
If there was a peak moment, it came in the 200-yard freestyle relay, where Skaneateles’ quartet of Elizabeth Springer, Caitlin Comer, Lily Buchholz and Grace King went one minute, 42.85 seconds to set a pool, school and sectional Class C meet record, more than eight seconds ahead of second-place Thousand Islands (1:51.44).
Buchholz, King, Springer and Lili Winkelman went 1:54.90 to post the only time under two minutes in the meet-opening 200 medley relay, and following it up Buchholz won the 200 freestyle in 1:58.40, besting the field by nearly 13 seconds.
A second title for Buchholz was earned in the 100 backstroke as, in 1:01.66, she inched closer to the state qualifying meet standard of 1:00.42, with Sophia Withey improving her best time of the fall by more than six seconds to 1:12.29 for eighth place.
King got a victory of her own in the 100 butterfly, needing a season-best 1:02.84 to hold off South Lewis’ Kayley Walsh (1:03.35) as Amelia Musso gained fourth place in 1:06.60 and Hope Azzam was seventh in 1:11.78. Then, in the 500 freestyle, King set another season mark, winning in 5:39.99 as Marcella Buchholz took third place in 5:59.52.
Skaneateles went 1-2 in the 100 breaststroke, where Winkelman, in a clocking of 1:10.91, prevailed and Comer got second place in 1:13.03. Lilly Marquardt finished eighth in 1:20 flat. Winkelman went 2:26.95 in the 200 individual medley, second to Lowville’s Meredith Lovenduski (2:22.65). Winkelman, Comer, Musso and Sophia Soprano were third in the 400 freestyle relay in 4:07.89.
Right after, in the 50 freestyle, Springer took second place in 25.48 seconds, right behind Holland Patent’s Maggie McGuire (25.31) as Lexis Cottrill was sixth in 27.49 seconds. Moving to the 100 freestyle, Springer went 56.95 seconds and Comer posted 57.53 to finish second and third, respectively, behind McGuire’s winning 55.78.
Cottrill had competed the day before in the Class C sectional diving competition at Nottingham High School, where she finished fifth as Carlee Pitman, with 340.05 points, was second to the 354 points from Beaver River’s Emma Dicob.
For West Genesee, the big story of sectional championship weekend was seeing its 200 freestyle relay team qualify for the Nov. 22-23 state championships at Ithaca College.
It came in Sunday’s overall sectional meet. Competing in the race before the finals, Hannah Murdock, Anna Ivery, Victoria Senus and Adriana Gill tore to a time of 1:41.60 which beat the state qualifying standard by nine-hundredths of a second.
Two days earlier, in the sectional Class A meet, Murdock, a freshman, finished third in the 500 freestyle, her time of 5:40.43 improving by more than six seconds her 5:47.06 from the fall. She was also seventh in the 50 freestyle.
Devon Burnside got to fourth place in the 100 breaststroke in a season-best 1:12.88 as Gill finished ninth in 1:20.13. Allison Putnam was eighth in the 100 backstroke.
In the 200 medley relay, Murdock, Ivery, Burnside and Taylor McFadden and went 1:57.63 to get fourth place in Class A, improving to 1:56.27 at the state qualifier to get sixth place in that race.
Gill, McFadden, Senus and Putnam would finish fourth in Class A in the 400 freestyle relay in 3:59.39, then improve to 3:57.36 in the overall meet to take ninth place.
As for Skaneateles at the state qualifier, Lily Buchholz rose to third place in the 200 freestyle in 1:58.66 and finished fifth in the 100 backstroke in 1:03.47.
King was eighth in the 100 butterfly in 1:06.11 and also took eighth in the 500 freestyle in 5:44.85. She also helped Buchholz, Comer and Springer finish sixth in the 200 freestyle relay in 1;44.55 as Winkelman got eighth place in the 100 breaststroke in 1:12.57.
In the Class B sectional meet at Nottingham, Westhill had Allison Lyons take 10th place in the 500 freestyle in 5:58.95. Lauren Lyons finished 10th in the 100 backstroke in 1:10.12 and was 11th in the 50 freestyle in 27.40 seconds. The Lyons sisters, along with Alexis Johnson and Annie Fitzgerald, were ninth in the 200 medley relay in 2:10.74 and ninth in the 200 freestyle relay in 1:56.03.
At that same meet, Marcellus swimmer Grace Femano was seventh in the 100 backstroke in 1:07.36, took eighth place in the 50 freestyle in 26.69 seconds.
