No regular-season meet for the Liverpool boys swim team meant as much as Wednesday night’s trip to Baldwinsville, at least in terms of putting away regular-season honors in the Salt City Athletic Conference.
And the Warriors did so with plenty of flair, breaking two Baker High School pool records on the way to a 57-36 victory over the Bees.
Griffin Merkling got one of those marks in the 200-yard individual medley, and needed it. His time of one minute, 59.89 seconds beat out B’ville star NIck Schultz’s 2:01.84.
Later, in the 200 freestyle relay, the Warriors’ quartet of Curtis Merrick, Julien Brownlow, Brandon Nguyen and Josh Foley went 1:33.36 to set another B’ville pool mark ahead of the Bees’ 1:35.08.
The meet started with Merkling, Merrick, Brownlow and Jack Andrejko going 1:42.28 to take the 200 medley relay, and it ended with a 400 freestyle relay that had plenty of thrills, too, as B’ville had Schultz, Quinn Gruppe, John Burns and Bailey Ludden go 3:28.09, but Merkling, Nguyen, Andrejko and Foley still won in 3:27.71.
Aside from his record-setting effort in the 200 IM, Merkling also won the 500 freestyle in 5:06.56. Brownlow battled with Ludden in the 100 freestyle and won 49.48 seconds to Ludden’s 50.49. This followed a 50 freestyle that Brownlow claimed in 22.34 seconds, with Merrick second in 23.33 seconds.
Andrejko went 58.36 seconds to prevail in the 100 backstroke ahead of Jack Hyde’s 1:01.27. Merrick, in 55.08 seconds, was just behind Schultz’s 55 seconds flat in the 100 butterfly. Ryan Wilhelm, in 1:07.84, beat out Nguyen (1:08.74) in the 100 breaststroke.
This followed a stretch from Jan. 3 to 11 where Liverpool competed six times, winning two head-to-head meets, two other three-team meets and also finished second in the Yeti Invitational at Webster Schroeder.
Liverpool would then claim another victory on Friday when it piled up 563 points, nearly double B’ville’s second-place total of 289.5, in the SCAC championships at Nottingham.
Merkling tore to a season-best 1:44.99 to win the 200 freestyle, and then earned a victory in the 100 butterfly in 53.59 seconds before Nguyen, Brownlow, Foley and Jack Hyde to win the 200 freestyle relay in 1:33.02 over Merkling, Andrejko, Merrick and Ian Denny, who went 1:33.80.
Merrick tore to 54.42 seconds to improve by nearly a second from the 55.27 he got in the 100 backstroke earlier this season. He also edged Brownlow, 22.63 seconds to 22.67, for second in the 50 freestyle.
Andrew Griffin got fourth place in the 500 freestyle in 5:46.60. Brownlow was fifth and Nguyen sixth in the 100 freestyle as Wilhelm was fifth in the 100 breaststroke and sixth in the 200 IM.
A night before Liverpool faced B’ville, Cicero-North Syracuse traveled to New Hartford, where it fell to 3-4 on the season with a 96-85 defeat to the Spartans.
Only twice did the Northstars win races, starting with Logan Petralia, John Harbaugh, Dillon Johnson and Connor Burke going 1:51.96 to prevail in the 200 medley relay.
Petralia would pull away to take the 50 freestyle in 23.91 seconds over teammate Sawyer Powell (25.07), also finishing second in the 100 freestyle in 53.03 seconds as Harbaugh was second in the 100 butterfly (1:01.23) and 200 freestyle, where he posted 2:04.94.
Burke got second place in the 200 IM in 2:24.51 and second in the 100 breaststroke (1:14.09) as Powell was second in the 100 backstroke in 1:05.38 and Dom Bagozzi finished second in the 500 freestyle.
Jacob Lester led New Hartford, going 1:49.25 in the 200 freestyle and 49.56 seconds in the 100 freeestyle as Joaz Elazzazi earned a single-meet school-record 303.95 points in diving.
In the SCAC meet on Friday, C-NS finished sixth out of 11 teams as it finished fourth in the 200 medley relay in 1:49.52, Petralia getting fourth place in the 50 freestyle in 23.49 seconds and ninth in the 100 breaststroke.
Powell earned fifth place in the 100 backstroke in 1:04.84, while Harbaugh got seventh place in the 100 butterfly in 58.87 seconds and the Northstars were seventh in the 400 freestyle relay.
