CENTRAL NEW YORK – Three more meets remained before the Jamesville-DeWitt/Christian Brothers Academy boys swim team could lay claim to an undefeated regular-season mark – and the Red Rams won all of them.
The first of them was handled with ease as J-D/CBA went to West Genesee last Tuesday night and, taking its top swimmers to different events, still rolled past the Wildcats 93-85.
All of the points were earned early, including a close diving competition where Cameron Corona, with 254.30 points, beat out the 240.10 from WG’s state qualifier, Ethan Martin. Garrett Fuller had 239.85 points and Sean Rigdon had 211.50.
Lesha Kabunov twice had first-place times, going five minutes, 10.27 seconds in the 500-yard freestyle and edging the Wildcats’ Ryan Goshow, 1:00.19 to 1:00.69, in the 100 backstroke.
Nathaniel Wales turned to the 200-yard freestyle where he finished in 1:56.88, while Misha Kabunov went 1:08.39 in the 100 breaststroke to top the 1:09.35 from the Wildcats’ David Martin.
J-D/CBA went 1-2 in the 200 individual medley, Matt Capella’s 2:22.09 beating Ryan Bannon’s 2:24.22 as Malcolm Britz, in 25.74 seconds, held off Jamey Turo (25.99) in the 50 freestyle.
Luke Marino was victorious in the 100 butterfly in 1:00.67, with Kyler Huyck a close second (55.07 seconds) to Goshow (54.92) in the 100 freestyle.
Turo, Capella, Mark Bratslavsky and Lucien Zens started the meet with a win in the 200 medley relay in 1:53.08. Turo and Britz joined Wales and Eli Wasserman to go 1:41.53 in the 200 freestyle relay.
A tougher assignment came Thursday, at Liverpool, but again J-D/CBA was up to it, strong from beginning to end in a 102-83 victory over the Warriors.
Wales led the way, parts of four winning efforts. On his own, he went 53.97 seconds in the 100 backstroke and edged Bratslavsky, 49.64 to 50.17, in the 100 freestyle after Bratslavsky took the 50 freesytle in 22.56 to the 22.76 from Liverpool’s Jack Cavallerano.
At the start of the meet, Wales and Bratslavsky joined the Kabunovs to swim the 200 medley relay in 1:43.42. And in a terrific 400 freestyle relay, Marino joined in as J-D/CBA, in 3:22.62, edged Liverpool’s 3:23.32.
As for Misha Kabunov, he went 2:03.49 to prevail in the 200 IM and sped to a time of 4:51.06 in the 500 freestyle. Corona had 257.95 points in diving, ahead of Fuller (240.20) and Rigdon (225.60), but behind the 275.50 from the Warriors’ Colin Gridley.
One more meet remained, on Saturday against New Hartford, and J-D/CBA built up a big early margin on the way to knocking off the Spartans 95-86 to make it 11-0.
And it was capped in the 400 freestyle relay, where Wales, Marino, Bratslvasky and Kabunov went 3:16.72, easily surpassing the state qualifying standard of 3:18.87 and breaking a pool record that had stood for nearly 40 years.
All the stars did their parts, whether it was Misha Kabunov going 2:05.88 in the 200 IM and 4:55.86 in the 500 freestyle or Wales having a top 100 backstroke time of 57.89 seconds to beat the 59.89 from New Hartford’s Mateo Ripa.
Sweeping the sprints, Bratslavsky took the 50 freestyle in 22.29 seconds and got the better of Wales, 49.84 to 50.05, in the 100 freestyle after Lesha Kabunov (56.82) held off Marino (56.88) in the 100 butterfly.
Rigdon’s 219.55 points helped him beat Corona (211.70) on the diving board. Bratslavsky, Wales and the Kabunovs swam the 200 medley relay in 1:40.95.
