ITHACA –
A season full of accolades for the Jamesville-DeWitt/Christian Brothers Academy and Fayetteville-Manlius boys swim teams capped off by going to Ithaca College for last weekend’s’s New York State Public High School Athletic Association championships.
J-D/CBA freshman Misha Kabunov was in two events, including the 500-yard freestyle, having gone four minute, 51.10 seconds in that race to get into the state meet.
Immediately improving on that effort in the qualifying round, Kabunov went more than four seconds faster, 4:47.03, to reach the finals, where with 4:48.01 he secured a 17th-place finish, Victor’s Alex Crossing getting the win in 4:31.05.
Also swimming in the 200 freestyle, Kabunov’s 1:45.67 improved on his season-best 1:46.86 by more than a second before a final where he finished in 1:45.79, 16th in the NYSPHSAA standings and 24th in the Federation race.
Kabunov paired up with Nathaniel Wales, Mark Bratslavsky and Luke Marino in the 400 freestyle relay, where a time of 3:18.05 got the Rams into the finals and they improved to 3:17.50 in the championship race to finish 15th, best among any of the Section III relay representatives.
Wales swam the 100 backstroke in 54.14 seconds to qualify 26th for the finals, and improved to 54.11 once there to take 24th place among NYSPHSAA swimmers, 27th overall.
As for F-M, it was led by senior Quinn Smith, who attends Cazenovia High School and was the outstanding swimmer at the Section III Class A meet Feb. 18, winning the 100 backstroke and 200 individual medley.
The school record-holder in the 100 backstroke with 52.69 seconds, Smith entered the meet with the no. 18 seed. By going 52.91 in the qualifying round, Smith advanced to Saturday’s finals in 15th place overall.
It proved a near-identical time in the finals, Smith going 52.92 seconds. That put him 15th in the Federation standings and 12th among NYSPHSAA swimmers as the winner, Burnt Hills’ Sam Brown, set a meet record by going 48.66.
Meanwhile, in the 200 IM, Smith was 24th going into the state meet with his time of 1:57.53. He immediately broke his own school mark, improving to 1:57.32 in the qualifying round, moving up to 16th place.
Saturday’s final had Smith put up another record performance, finishing in 1:56.55. That left him 13th in both the NYSPHSAA and Federation standings in a race won by Lancaster’s Aaron Gasiewicz in 1:50.49.
In diving, F-M’s Connor Gleasman did the best of any Section III competitor as he was the only one to make it out of the opening round. Then Gleasman advanced to the finals, where with a total of 412.85 points he gained 14th place in the NYSPHSAA standings, 15th overall. Pittsford’s Daley Fraser pulled away to win with 582.80 points.
