LIVERPOOL – In front of home fans and in front of its neighbors and rivals, the Liverpool girls swim team secured a place at the top of the Salt City Athletic Conference Metro division.
The Warriors’ 108-78 victory over Cicero-North Syracuse Tuesday night helped it finish the regular season at 7-1, assuring that it would finish atop the league standings since it beat Fayetteville-Manlius head-to-head.
Leading the way for Liverpool was the duo of Sarah Colwell and Kaitlyn Thompson, who each won two individual races.
Colwell would go two minutes, 7.21 seconds to prevail in the 200-yard freestyle before going to the 500 freestyle and, in 5:42.01, pull away from C-NS’s Kate Gucciardi, who was second in 5:50.78.
Thompson struck in the 100 freestyle, her time of 56.85 seconds well clear of teammate Kerry Hunter, who in 1:00.07 edged the Northstars’ Rose Coleman (1:00.15) for the runner-up spot.
Then, in the 100 backstroke, Thompson was part of another 1-2 Liverpool finish, going 1:05.78 as Arianna Kuznia got second place in 1:07.49 ahead of C-NS’s Ella Lawrence (1:08.57) in third.
The Warriors also won two of three relays. Thompson and Colwell paired with Gellert and Kuznia to take the 200 freestyle relay in 1:46.39 to hold off the 1:47.05 from the Northstars’ quartet of Gucciardi, Coleman, Leah Benedict and Cassidy Svoboda.
And to close out the meet, that same Liverpool team went 4:07.72 in the 400 freestyle relay as another Liverpool team, composed of Julia King, Chloe Brown, Elizabeth Manley and Isabelle Akley went 4:13.33 for second place.
King had just finished first in the 100 breaststroke in 1:18.11, edging the 1:18.43 from Svoboda as Hunter (1:20.07) took third. Gellert was victorious in a close 100 butterfly, going 1:05.18 to Benedict’s 1:05.89.
C-NS did see Kaitlyn Carroll and Sophia Sugrue finish 1-2 in diving, with Carroll earning 267.25 points and Sugrue getting 225.05 points as Liverpool’s June Piorkowski (208.10) was third.
In the opening 200 medley relay, the Northstars had Carroll, Svoboda, Kate Gucciardi and Cassidy Payrot prevail in 2:01.71, with Benedict, Coleman, Lawrence and Molly Gucciardi second in 2:05.05.
This, along with the diving wins and Kate Gucciardi, in 2:28.77, beating Gellert (2:30.24) in the 200 medley relay, had C-NS in front, where it stayed until Thompson and Hunter’s sweep in the 100 butterfly. Benedict went 2:11.42 to finish second in the 200 freestyle.
Now the work would start for Liverpool and C-NS swimmers for next Wednesday’s Section III Class A championships at Nottingham High School. The sectional state qualifying meet follows two days later.
