When the West Genesee boys swim team made its way to Nottingham High School for last Thursday’s Section III Class A championships, some of the pressure was already off.
Ryan McMahon was already bound for the state championship meet in the 100-yard breaststroke. Now he was joined by swimmer Keegan Scharoun, divers Justin Byrne and David Puma along with the Wildcats’ 200-yard medley relay team.
In the sectional Class A diving competition on Feb. 8, Byrne broke through. It takes a score of 450.00 points at some point during the season to qualify for the state meet and Byrne flew past that mark, earning 462.90 points.
Though he finished second to Jamesville-DeWitt/CBA’s Lucas Dekaney (514.75 points), Byrne had secured the score he needed to earn a trip to Long Island’s Nassau Aquatic Center, where on March 6-7 the state meet takes place.
Puma almost got to that total, too, earning 437.65 points for fourth place. Parker McIlroy was seventh with 363.85 points, with Bryan Reichert 12th (342.85), Aiden Burlingame 15th (316.70) and Kyle Collins 17th (297.40).
Now it was on to last Wednesday’s overall state qualifier, which brought together the 16 top divers from all the classes. Byrne, Puma and McIlroy all were in the field.
With one more chance to improve his score and reach the state meet, Puma did so, earning 454.65 points to join Byrne, who was third with 508.35 points as McIlroy got 11th place with 386.20 points.
Overall, a Section III record seven divers advanced to the state meet – Byrne, Puma, Dekaney, Moaz Elazzazi (New Hartford), Jack Tonkin (Oswego), Connor Gleasman (Fayetteville-Manlius) and Kian Long (Mexico).
Then it was the swimmers’ turn last Thursday afternoon, where McMahon, swimming with Scharoun, Alex Shuron, and Chase Foresti, would go one minute, 40.16 seconds in the 200 medley relay, which beat the state qualifying standard of 1:40.67 by more than half a second.
WG was third in that event and third overall in the team standings by the end of the meet, helped by McMahon’s second-place finish in the 100 breaststroke in 1:01.21 and a fourth in the 500 freestyle in a season-best 4:56.58.
As for Scharoun, he got to second place in the 100 backstroke in 55.26 seconds, trailing only the 54.33 from Liverpool’s Curtis Merrick, and rose to sixth in the 50 freestyle in 23.15 seconds.
But it was in Saturday’s state qualifier that Scharoun got the mark he needed in the 100 backstroke, improving to 54.74 seconds when 54.82 was needed to advance, Scharoun again second behind Merrick’s 53.74.
Shuron was third in the Class A 100 butterfly in 54.53 seconds, beating his previous best of 57.37 by nearly three full seconds, to go with a ninth in the 200 individual medley in 2:12.52. In the state qualifier, Shuron was sixth in the 100 butterfly in 55.65 seconds.
Long, Foresti, McMahon and Shuron earned sixth place in the 200 freestyle relay in 1:33.97, with Long, Matt Barrington, Josh Goshow and Joe McManus seventh in the 400 freestyle relay.
Later that day, in the sectional Class B/C meet, Westhill junior Vincent Tarolli won twice, going 22.40 seconds to pull away in the 50 freestyle (no one else broke the 23-second mark) and then taking the 100 freestyle in 49 seconds flat.
When it moved to the state qualifier, Tarolli’s 48.65 seconds in the 100 freestyle was enough to reach the state meet, since the qualifying standard was 48.76.
Tarolli finished third in the 100 freestyle behind Watertown’s Simon Stratton (47.73) and Liverpool’s Julien Brownlow (47.84), and his 22.32 seconds put him fourth in the 50 freestyle but short of the state qualifying mark of 22.19.
