Over the course of eight days, swimmers and divers from Fayetteville-Manlius and Jamesville-DeWitt/CBA would battle it out in various portions of the Section III championship meets.
Going into it, J-D/CBA already had a diver headed for the March 6-7 state meet on Long Island – Lucas Dekaney, who took home the sectional Class A title on Feb. 8 by a big margin.
Earning 514.75 points, Dekaney was well clear of West Genesee’s Justin Byrne (462.90) and Oswego’s Jack Tonkin (454.35), both of whom surpassed the 450-point state qualifying standard.
Dekaney repeated in last Wednesday’s state qualifier, earning 546.90 points to the 516.30 earned by New Hartford’s Moaz Elazzazi in second place.
But it was here that F-M’s Connor Gleasman earned his ticket to the state meet, picking up 490.55 points to easily surpass the 450-point qualifying standard and finish fifth.
Overall, a Section III record seven divers advanced to the state meet – Dekaney, Gleasman, Byrne, Elazzazi, Tonkin WG’s David Puma and Mexico’s Kian Long.
Then F-M put on quite a good performance in Thursday’s Class A meet at Nottingham. With 263 points, it earned second place in the 12-team field, trailing only Liverpool’s winning total of 381.5 points.
The highlight of the sectional meet was having Quinn Smith, a sophomore from Cazenovia, go out in the 500-yard freestyle and prevail in four minutes, 48.77 seconds, nearly 17 seconds faster than his previous best of 5:05.70.
That effort, along with a second-place time of 1:59.63 in the 200 individual medley, will allow Smith to compete in two races at the state meet as, in the state qualifier, he improved to 1:58.92 in the 200 IM.
In that same race, F-M’s Lucas Weires got third place in Class A in 2:04.03, while Jason Porter was seventh in 2:09.53 and Ben Rabin (2:10.54) was eighth. Weires’ 2:03.12 in the state qualifier put him in fifth place.
Weires, Quinn, Ben Rabin and Eric Bang were second in the 400 freestyle relay in 3:21.67 in Class A and repeated that finish in the qualifier, going 3:19.94 to Liverpool’s winning 3:17.79.
Smith, Rabin, Weires and Porter were fifth in the Class A 200 medley relay in 1:41.66, less than a second from the state qualifying standard of 1:40.67, and had a 1:41.74 in that event in the state qualifier.
Miguel Aldana took seventh in the Class A 500 freestyle in 5:16.98. In the 100 breaststroke, Richard Wan was seventh in 1:05.65, just ahead of Rabin (1:05.87) in eighth. Bang took ninth in the 200 freestyle in 1:57.63, with Carter Page 10th in the 100 backstroke in 1:03.04.
For J-D/CBA, who finished sixth in Class A with 219 points, it included Nate Wales, Nathan Chen, Peter Hatton and Conlan Rourke finishing fifth in the 200 freestyle relay in 1:33.71.
Rourke made his way to fifth place in the 50 freestyle in 22.50 seconds as Hatton (23.81) finished ninth. In the 100 freestyle, Rourke took 49.44 seconds to finish sixth.
Chen swam to fourth place in the 100 breaststroke in a season-best 1:02.89 and took sixth in the 200 IM in 2:09.37, also helping Hatton, Rourke and Wales post 1:42.72 for sixth place in the 200 medley relay.
Wales was sixth in the 500 freestyle in 5:12.46 and seventh in the 200 freestyle in 1:56.87. Chen, Hatton, Rourke and Wales were fifth in the 200 freestyle relay in 1:33.71. Bobby Diel finished ninth in the 100 butterfly and 10th in the 200 IM.
Among the swimmers at the state qualifier, Rourke was seventh in the 50 freestyle in 22.64 seconds and improved to 49.14 seconds in the 100 freestyle, again finishing seventh. Chen was fifth in the 100 breaststroke in 1:02.33.
