ONONDAGA COUNTY – Though they weren’t all together in the same place, 10 girls swimming teams, including Liverpool and Cicero-North Syracuse, would still battle with each other for Section III Class A championship honors.
They did so through a “virtual” format where each team would race at their respective pools, record times and then send them into the section to determine winners.
On the team side, Liverpool earned 308 points, finishing third, while C-NS got 257 points for fourth place. Fayetteville-Manlius won with 505 points as Christian Brothers Academy (336 points) edged the Warriors for second place.
The Warriors earned a sweep of the sprints thanks to senior Delaney Gellert, whose time of 24.47 seconds in the 50-yard freestyle beat out the 24.54 from CBA’s Lauren Kelly as Kaitlyn Thompson finished sixth in 25.78 seconds to go with a seventh in the 100 backstroke.
Moving to the 100 freestyle, Gellert went 54.54 seconds, just enough to beat the 54.87 posted by Oswego’s Sydney DeLapp as C-NS’s Alayna Harbaugh finished sixth in 57.33 seconds.
In the 400 freestyle relay, Liverpool’s quartet of Thompson, Sophia Russo, Delaney Gellert and Emerson Gellert finished third in 3:53.83. Russo was 10th in the 200 freestyle, with Emerson Gellert 10th in the 100 butterfly in 1:07.86 and Samantha Walker 10th in the 100 breaststroke in 1:18.74.
Kaitlyn Carroll gave the Northstars a victory in the diving competition, amassing 290.40 points to pull away from a pack that included Liverpool’s Sophia Recuparo (225.90) and Aija McIntyre (220.80), who were third and fourth, respectively as Makenna Dudley took seventh place.
C-NS contended in the 200 freestyle relay, where Harbaugh, Kate Gucciardi, Brittany Wood and Cassidy Svoboda posted 1:56.76, second only to CBA’s 1:53.97 as Liverpool had Dominque DeRuijter, Juila King, Kerry Hunter and Emerson Gellert take fifth in 2:02.96, with DeRuijter also eighth in the 100 backstroke.
In the 200 freestyle relay, the Northstars had Gucciardi, Wood, Bryn Myers and Alyssa Hujar finish third in 1:44.24, with Thompson, Russo and the Gellert sisters fourth for Liverpool in 1:45.19.
Svoboda rose to fourth place in the 100 breaststroke in 1:13.57, with Myers ninth. Gucciardi was fifth in the 100 butterfly in 1:04.41 and sixth in the 100 backstroke in 1:04.49.
Myers got sixth in the 200 individual medley in 2:27.19 as Wood finished eighth, with Harbaugh seventh in the 50 freestyle in 25.90 seconds. Grace Devinney took seventh place in the 500 freestyle in 5:52.14, where DeRuijter was ninth and Emerson Gellert 10th.
