SYRACUSE – On both team and individual fronts, boys swimmers from Liverpool and Cicero-North Syracuse would have a large say in how the Section III Class A championships at Nottingham High School would play out.
As it turned out, the Warriors would make a serious push for the top, ultimately finishing third with 302 points behind Baldwinsville (324) and and Fayettevile-Manlius (313.5) while getting individual titles from Jack Cavallerano and Joey Lisi. The Northstars were fifth with 234 points.
Cavallerano was the top seed in the 100-yard butterfly with a 51.98-second mark this season, but he blew well past that mark here, tearing to a time of 50.07 to beat the runner-up, Jamesville-DeWitt/CBA’s Lesha Kabunov (54.01), by nearly four seconds.
Then, in the 200 freestyle relay, Cavallerano, paired with Lisi, Sean O’Neil and Nate Alexander, would win in 1:28.82, holding off the C-NS quartet of Jake Griffin, Caden Griffin, Brandon Keil and Leo Alexander, whose 1:30.11 beat the state meet qualifying standard of 1:30.12 by one-hundredth of a second.
All of this followed an opening 200 medley relay where James Hayden joined Cavallerano, Lisi and O’Neil and, in 1:40.17, advanced to the state meet while it finished second to B’ville’s 1:38.41. Keil, Alexander and the Griffins had C-NS third in 1:42.95.
With his cumulative efforts, Cavallerano, who was also third in the 50 freestyle in 22.14 seconds, shared Outstanding Swimmer of the Meet honors with B’ville’s Lucas Clay, who was victorious in the 200 individual medley and 100 breaststroke.
As for Lisi, he got his victory in the 100 backstroke, going 53.07 seconds as he beat out Jake Griffin’s second-place 53.94, though again both advanced to the state meet, just as Griffin had done earlier this season in the 50 freestyle.
Lisi also earned a state meet berth in the 200 IM. As Clay pulled away to win in 1:57.51, Lisi battled all the way to the wall and, touching in 2:00.54, was just under the 2:00.63 he needed. O’Neil further helped Liverpool by finishing third in the 100 freestyle in 51.12 seconds.
Leading C-NS, Jake Griffin went 21.91 seconds in the 50 freestyle, a close second to Fulton’s Logan Ames in 21.86 as Caden Griffin was close behind in fourth place.
All of this good work carried over into Friday’s state qualifier, where Liverpool started the meet by having Cavallerano, Lisi, Hayden and Nate Alexander go 1:39.20 in the 200 medley relay to beat B’ville’s 1:39.63.
In the 100 butterfly, Cavallerano again prevailed, his 50.94 seconds a full second ahead of the 51.94 from Skaneateles’ Gavin Van Kersbergen to go with a fourth in the 50 freestyle in 22.21.
Improving to 52.65 seconds in the 100 backstroke, Lisi beat Jake Griffin’s 54.30 in third place, but both were behind Van Kersbergen, who won in 52.23 as Lisi got third in the 200 IM in 2:01.09.
Elsewhere for the Warriors, Alexander moved up to fourth place in the 500 freestyle in 5:06.25 and went 1:53.69 for a top-10 finish in the 200 freestyle. O’Neil almost equaled his 100 freestyle from Wednesday and, in 51.12 seconds, was ninth overall.
Jake Griffin added a third in the 50 freestyle in 21.83 ahead of Caden Griffin (22.49) in fifth place. Keil, Leo Alexander and the Griffins rose to third in the 200 freestyle relay in 1:30.19, with Caden sixth in the 100 butterfly in 55.41. Keil was ninth in the 100 freestyle in 50.91.
C-NS and Liverpool both had solid showings during last Saturday’s sectional Class A diving championships, with the Northstars’ duo of Nate Ornoski and Carter Canastra both in the top five.
Ornoski, who had already qualified for the state meet by meeting the 450-point standard Jan. 27 in the Burgos Dive Invitational, finished with 440.20 points for fourth place and Canastra (435.3 points) was fifth, with Liverpool’s Colin Gridley (409.4) beating out the Northstars’ Chris Koegel (379.25) for eighth place.
Gridley would get a lot closer to the state qualifying standard during last Tuesday’s sectional state qualifier, his 444.6 points less than five points from the mark even as he set a new season standard.
Ultimately, Gridley was fifth, just behind Ornoski (448.40) in fourth place, while Canastra made his way to sixth place with 437.2 points. Koegel’s 324.65 points put him in 12th place.
