Once more, the Liverpool boys swim team can celebrate the accomplishment of an undefeated regular season and a Salt City Athletic Conference title.
The league championship was already clinched when the Warriors faced Fayetteville-Manlius Friday night at Cazenovia College, but saw its undefeated mark threatened before fighting past the Hornets 96.5-88.5.
At three different points in the meet, Liverpool would put together timely sweeps, two of which provided the lead, the other clinching the team win.
It first happened in the 50-yard freestyle, where the Warriors went 1-2-3, Julien Brownlow taking it in a swift 22.05 seconds ahead of Curtis Merrick (22.94) and Josh Foley (23.95).
Over the course of the next four events, F-M rallied and took a 64.5-60.5 lead, only to have it all turn again in the 200 freestyle relay. Again Liverpool swept the top three spots, with Brownlow, Foley, Brayden Catalina and Brandon Nguyen nabbing the victory in 1:34.50.
But the meet wasn’t clinched until the 100 breaststroke, when Griffin Merkling, already qualified for the state meet in this race, roared to victory in 1:00.26 and Ryan Wilhelm was second in 1:08.09.
Aside from this, Nguyen was victorious in the 200 individual medley in 2:11.74, with Will Allen going 5:25.26 to win the 500 freestyle. Uriy Grabovyy earned 205.45 points in diving to edge F-M’s Connor Gleasman (198.50) for the top spot.
And in the opening 200 medley relay, it was Nguyen, Merrick, Brownlow and Wilhelm who swam to a time of 1:43.64 as Merkling, Jack Andrejko, Ian Denny and Ismar Latifagic were second in 1:47.37.
Andrejko went 57.88 seconds in the 100 backstroke, just behind the 57.12 from F-M’s Quinn Smith. Foley took second in the 100 freestyle in 52.55 seconds as Wilhelm was second in the 100 butterfly in 1:00.36.
Moving on to Saturday’s Burgos Memorial Diving Invitational, Grabovyy picked up 379.95 points, putting him in sixth place as Jamesville-DeWitt/CBA’s Lucas Dekaney won with 477.95 points.
Back on Friday, Cicero-North Syracuse won its last meet of the regular season, the Northstars traveling to Auburn and defeating the Maroons by a score of 81-70.
John Harbaugh as first in the 100 butterfly in 1:00.22 and posted the fastest 100 backstroke time of 1:08.64. He also helped Seaver Schultz, Logan Petralia and Dom Bagozzi tear to a time of 1:33.33 in the 200 freestyle relay.
Connor Burke beat the field in the 200 IM in 2:23.16 after helping Harbaugh, Petralia and Schultz go 1:46.60 in the 200 medley relay, with Petralia speeding to 22.58 seconds in the 50 freestyle as Bagozzi won the 100 freestyle in 55.75 seconds.
