SYRACUSE – Both on an individual and collective basis, the Skaneateles girls swim team continues to place itself above the others in the Section III Class C ranks.
During Wednesday’s sectional meet at Nottingham High School, the Lakers won all but one of the individual events and, with 535 points, nearly doubled the runner-up total of Lowville, who had 300 points.
Alice Spaulding led the way, going two minutes, 11.84 seconds in the 200-yard individual medley to qualify for the Nov. 17-18 state meet at Webster as Caitlin Comer finished second in 2:23.75 and Sophia Soprano (2:32.65) was fourth.
Moving to the 100 butterfly, Spaulding, who already had a spot in the state meet her, put up a season-best 58.64 seconds, more than eight seconds ahead of the field, with Maya Drotar fifth in 1:12.14.
Arianna Matthews went 2:00.33 to win the 200 freestyle as Olivia Springer (2:08.53) was third and Ana Nichols sixth. Matthews also won the 500 freestyle in 5:24.29, while Olivia Springer was second in 5:48.50 and Marcella Buchholz finished fifth.
Yet another 1-2 finish in the 50 freestyle saw Elizabeth Springer win in 25.34 seconds over Kyla Palmer (26.83), with Drotar fourth in 27.54. To complete her sprint sweep, Springer won the 100 freestyle in 56.38 seconds, with Ana Nichols fourth in 1:00.95.
It got going in the 200 medley relay, where Spaulding, Matthews, Comer and Elizabeth Springer went 1:55.53, more than 15 seconds ahead of the field, and continued when Drotar, Comer, Palmer and Olivia Springer won the 200 freestyle relay in 1:46.69.
Late in the meet, Comer claimed the 100 breaststroke in 1:12.14, with Soprano fifth. Palmer got second in the 100 backstroke in 1:12.61, just ahead of Buchholz (1:13.12) in fourth place, and to complete a relay sweep, Spaulding, Matthews and the Springer sisters went 3:44.63 to dominate the 400 freestyle relay.
Back on Saturday, Skaneateles diver Phoebe Bedard won a close race for the Class C championship, which came down to the final dive.
Only at the end did Bedard, with 311.80 points, hold off the 311.60 from West Canada Valley’s Analyce Grabowski. The Lakers’ Arianna Cirincione was third with 300.90 points.
This happened as West Genesee diver Lily Mauro made her way to second place in the Class A sectional competition.
Mauro earned 399.55 points, topped only by the 468.15 from Cicero-North Syracuse’s Kaitlyn Carroll, who won her third straight Class A title. Syracuse-Westhill diver Tehya Gibson was sixth, with 350.30 points, beating out WG’s Mikenna Komuda, who with 347.35 earned seventh place.
As to the race portion of the sectional meet, WG was sixth out of 10 teams, led by Maddie Owczarzak, who in the 100 freestyle went 55.66 seconds, a close second behind the 55.32 from Fayetteville-Manlius’ Georgia Langan.
Allison Putnam made her way to third place in the 500 freestyle in 5:35.93, with Angie Gittschau fifth in 5:46.53, both of them season bests, and the Wildcats were fifth in the 400 freestyle relay in 4:00.10.
Owczarzak earned fifth place in the 200 freestyle in a season-best 2:03.70 as Angie Gittschau was fourth in the 200 IM in 2:24.88. WG was seventh in the 200 medley relay and eighth in the 200 freestyle relay. Kelly McManus was 11th in the 100 backstroke.
When the sectional state qualifier took place on Friday, Skaneateles, with 210 points, finished third behind New Hartford and Fayetteville-Manlius as West Genesee was 10th with 131 points.
In an exciting conclusion to the meet, the Lakers’ 400 freestyle relay team won when, after legs by Matthews and the Springers, Spaulding edged Oswego-Mexico star Alexa von Holtz by one-hundredths of a second, 3:41.73 to 3:41.74, though both teams qualified for the state meet.
Spaulding went 2:13.30 in the 200 IM for second place behind von Holtz (2:05.30) as Comer was fifth in 2:25.04. Later, in the 100 butterfly, Spaulding’s 59.02 seconds again was runner-up to von Holtz, who went 55.92 on the way to Swimmer of the Meet honors.
Matthews went 5:23.06 in the 500 freestyle, second to the 5:17.06 from New Hartford’s Dana Hans, and also took third in the 200 freestyle in 1:58.65, with Putnam fifth in 2:03.18 and Owczarzak (2:03.24) seventh. Putnam added a seventh in the 500 freestyle.
Spaulding, Comer, Matthews and Elizabeth Springer were fourth in the 200 medley relay in 1:55.62 before Springer, in 25.37 seconds, took second to F-M’s Georgia Langan (24.96) in the 50 freestyle before a fifth in the 100 freestyle in 56.34 behind Owczarzak’s fourth-place 55.80. Comer was third in the 100 breaststroke in 1:11.81.
WG’s best finish was in diving, where Mauro earned 394.90 points, behind only the 513.60 from Carroll and 469.50 from Jamesville-DeWitt’s Kayla McQuaid as Gibson was fourth (391.30) and Komuda finished ninth.
