With his status as one of the top high school swimmers in Central New York, Griffin Merkling had his choice of 11 different events to compete in during the New York State Public High School Athletic Association championships.
But the Liverpool junior decided to only swim one individual race – the 200-yard individual medley – and concentrate more on earning honors with his senior teammates in two different relay events.
Having gone 1:56.95 during the season to enter the state meet ranked 17th, Merkling improved that by a lot, going 1:54.77 to qualify fifth for the finals, not far from the fastest time of 1:51.39 from Miller Place’s Henry Shemet. That also broke the Liverpool school record which Garrett Clarke set in 2014.
In Saturday’s finals, Merkling didn’t go quite as fast, but his 1:55.38 still put him eighth overall and sixth among NYSPHSAA swimmers as Great Neck South’s Justin Whang won both events in 1:51.12.
Meanwhile, senior Julien Brownlow had gone 21.50 seconds in the 50 freestyle and entered the state meet as the 13th qualifier in that race, but had a disqualification.
Making up for that in the 200 freestyle relay, Brownlow was with Merkling, Brandon Nguyen and Jack Hyde, where they were bent on improving 1:29.06 and a 17th seed – which they did, going 1:28.29 to enter the finals in 10th place.
Then Liverpool improved to 1:27.48 in that state championship race, fourth among NYSPHSAA sides and eighth overall. Watertown was second in the public division in 1:26.78 and Bethlehem won in 1:26.56.
Over in the 400 freestyle relay, Liverpool’s quartet of Brownlow, Merkling, Nguyen and Jack Andrejko would go 3:16.79 in the qualifying round and then improve more than two seconds to 3:14.04 to finish 12th overall.
Merkling, Brownlow, Curtis Merrick and, Jack Andrejko were in the 200 medley relay, where Liverpool was seeded 17th with a time of 1:38.19.
By swimming 1:38.47, the Warriors qualified for the finals and then improved to 1:38.13 to end up in 13th place overall and seventh in the NYSPHSAA division.
Individually, Merrick took part in the 100 backstroke, looking to go quicker than 53.74 seconds, but settling for 55.55 seconds and 40th place.
Cicero-North Syracuse had its own contingent at the state meet, which remained remarkable given that the Northstars still didn’t have a home facility and had to instead camp at Le Moyne College.
Logan Petralia completed his senior season for the Northstars in the 50 freestyle, where he had swam 22.16 seconds to reach the state meet. He improved to 22.04 seconds in the qualifying round and went 22.24 in the finals to finish 26th.
Petralia, paired with John Harbaugh, Seaver Schultz and Dom Bagozzi, had gone 1:29.69 in the 200 freestyle relay at the Feb. 15 state qualifier to reach this meet.
A time of 1:29.66 got the Northstars to the finals and, by going 1:29.93 on Saturday, C-NS gained 16th place in the NYSPHSAA division and was 23rd overall.
