SYRACUSE – Few, if any boys swimmers in the history of the Cicero-North Syracuse program enjoyed a performance similar to what sophomore Jacob Griffin accomplished during last week’s Section III championships.
Not content with just qualifying for next month’s state meet at Ithaca College, Smith would twice shatter school records end up named the outstanding swimmer when the sectional state qualifier took place Friday at Nottingham High School.
In the 50-yard freestyle, Smith would, in 21.84 seconds, improve his own school mark by two-hundredths of a second and, in doing so, edge Baldwinsville’s Mikey White (21.94) to go to the top of the podium.
The 100 freestyle brought a similar ending. With a school-record clocking of 48.24 seconds, Griffin beat out the 48.47 from Fulton’s Bryce Rogers and the 48.50 from White to again win.
And it didn’t stop there, either. In the 200 freestyle relay, Jacob Griffin swam the opening leg and, with terrific efforts from Connor Burke, Anthony Gabrielli and Caden Griffin, went 1:30.44 to hold off Mexico (1:30.72) and New Hartford (1:30.82) and earn another berth in the state meet.
Back in the sectional Class A meet on Wednesday, in the 50 freestyle Jacob Griffin was seeded second to White, but in 21.86 seconds established a school record once held by Logan Petralia (22.04) and held off a challenge from Rome Free Academy’s Dominick Gratch (21.96).
It was the same in the 100 freestyle, with Griffin nearly getting caught by Gratch – but in 48.41 seconds, Griffin shattered Seaver Schultz’s previous school record of 49.13 and needed it to edge Gratch’s 48.43.
Jacob Griffin and Caden Griffin were joined by Gabrielli and Burke to finish third in the 200 medley relay in 1:44.90, and that same quartet made it to second place in the 200 freestyle relay in 1:33.06, trailing only B’ville’s 1:31.95.
Donovan Medina (fourth) and Burke (fifth) each had top-five efforts in the Class A 100 breaststroke – Medina posting 1:08.44, Burke 1:09.63 – with Gabrielli eighth in the 100 backstroke in a season-best 1:01.41. Caden Griffin was ninth and Burke 10th in the 200 freestyle.
Despite all this, C-NS, with 205 points, only finished sixth in the team standings, while Liverpool made its way to third place with 258 points, trailing only Jamesville-DeWitt/CBA and Fayetteville-Manlius.
The Warriors’ lone Class A victory came from Jack Cavallerano, who in the 100 butterfly powered his way to victory in 55.61 seconds chased by Caden Griffin, who got second place in 57.11 as Geoff Race was fifth in 58.13 for Liverpool.
Two days later, in the state qualifier, Cavallerano finished third in the 100 butterfly in 55.31 seconds, with Griffin fifth in 56.70 and Race sixth in a season-best 57.45.
Cavallerano also finished second in the Class A 200 individual medley in 2:09.23 as Alexander was third in the 200 freestyle in 1:52.44 and third in the 500 freestyle in 5:10.84.
Improving to 2:07.28 in the state qualifier, Cavallerano was fifth in the IM, with Alexander fifth in the 200 freestyle in 1:52.75 and matching that finsih in the 500 freestyle in 5:12.50.
Selig gained fourth place in the Class A 100 freestyle in 50.78 seconds after going 22.90 for fifth place in the 100 freestyle. He would do best in the state qualifier in the 50, getting sixth place in 23.02.
The Warriors had Tom Panzetta, Andrew Griffin, Ryan Gublo and Solomon Panayil finish sixth in the Class A 200 medley relay in 1:56.82. Gublo, in 1:12.39, edged Jared Keyes (1:12.86) for eighth place in the 100 breaststroke as Colin Gridley finished 11th in diving with 344.40 points.
