LIVERPOOL – Big developments last week in high school boys swimming served to improve the chances of Liverpool and Cicero-North Syracuse to battle for top honors in the Salt City Athletic Conference.
On the same Tuesday night that Baldwinsville put an end to Jamesville-DeWitt/CBA’s two-year unbeaten streak, the Warriors, led by Jack Cavallarano’s pair of state qualifying efforts, improved to 2-0, defeating Fulton 97-77 in its home opener.
It began in the 50-yard freestyle, where Cavallerano tore to victory in 22.11 seconds, faster than the 22.19 he needed to assure a trip to Ithaca College for March’s state championship meet.
Not content with this, Cavallerano turned to the 100 butterfly and, in 52.47 seconds, was more than one second faster than the qualifying standard of 53.95 and more than six seconds ahead of the Red Dragons’ Chris Mandart.
Later in the meet, Cavallerano would join Joe Lisi, Tristan Vang and Nate Alexander to close out the meet by winning the 400 freestyle relay in a clocking of 3:43.78.
Already, Alexander had won twice, including a dramatic 200 freestyle where, in 1:53.74, he edged Mandart (1:53.77) by three-hundredths of a second. It was nearly as close in the 100 freestyle, Alexander’s 50.99 seconds holding off the 51.14 from Fulton’s Logan Ames.
Not to be left out of this, Lisi tore through the 100 backstroke in 55.23 seconds, a new personal mark that inched him closer to the state qualifying standard of 54.82, while also winning the 200 individual medley in 2:06.77 as James Hayden (2:15.09) was second.
Hayden, Lisi, Vang and Bryce Shutts had started the meet by topping the Red Dragons 1:51.52 to 1:53.48 in the 200 medley relay, with Ryan Vann winning the 500 freestyle in 5:40.39 and Colin Gridley picking up 227.4 points in diving.
Vang nearly won the 100 breaststroke, his 1:11.59 just behind the 1:10.88 from Fulton’s Aidan Caples, while in the 200 freestyle relay Cavallerano, Alexander, Vann and Sean O’Neil went 1:37.16, beaten out by the Red Dragon’s 1:36.99.
