SYRACUSE – No one would catch the Jamesville-DeWitt girls swim team as it roared to the Section III Class B championship Wednesday at Nottingham High School.
Even better for the Red Rams was that, two days later in the sectional state qualifier, it netted points in every single event and, with 276 points, held off Liverpool (221) to lay claim to the George Falwell Cup for this year.
Individually, Thearyn Wales led J-D. Having already qualified for the Nov. 22-23 state meet at Webster in the 100-yard backstroke, she broke the one-minute mark in that event to win in 59.38 seconds as no one else even broke 1:02 in that event.
Later, in the 400 freestyle relay Wales joined Evelyn Jones, Nora Barnello and Cora Bright to take that race in 3:45.22 ahead of New Hartford’s 3:49.26. In the 200 freestyle, Wales finished second in 2:02.32.
Jones’ best finish came in the 100 freestyle where, in 55.82 seconds, she was runner-up to the 55.26 of Watertown’s Molly Dickinson. Earlier, in the 200 medley relay Jones, Wales, Maggie Lister and Maria Fisher were second in 1:53.50, just behind New Hartford’s 1:53.21.
In diving, J-D and Christian Brothers Academy both had competitors advance to the state meet. Kayla McQuaid was already there and took the state qualifier with 510.3 points, while the Brothers’ Sophia Osvoldik earned 457.50 points to beat the 450-point state standard.
The Rams’ Zoe McCarthy and Kaia Eutale were ninth and 10th, respectively, after Eutale finished seventh in the Nov. 2 sectional meet with 339.9 points and McCarthy was 12th. McQuaid had 469.95 points for second place, Osvodik fifth earning 433..9 points.
Swimmming against one another in the Class B sectional meet J-D, earning 564 points, easily claimed victory with CBA’s 402 points putting it in the runner-up spot.
Jones and Wales led J-D’s championship push, with Jones taking the 50-yard freestyle in 25.32 seconds to edge New Hartford’s Maggie Reale (25.39) and then going 55.22 in the 100 freestyle as part of a top-three sweep with Bright (56.71) and Lila Schroth (59.04) as Nora Barnello was third (26.12) in the 50 freestyle.
Meanwhile, Wales, in 2:02.35, got away from CBA’s Zoe Thayer (2:06.04) in the 200 freestyle with Bright third in 2:09.83 before going to the 100 backstroke and in 1:00.26, beating the standard of 1:00.42 needed to quality for the state meet.
A close 200 individual medley had CBA’s Madison Ceclia, in 2:24.37, half a second ahead of the 2:24.87 from Lister as Anna Fuller got third in 2:25.90 to go with a third in the 100 backstroke in 1:03.45.
Ceclia added a second in the 100 butterfly in 1:02.72, while Thayer needed 5:42.95 for second place in the 500 freestyle. Fuller, Alison Sullivan, Josie Lachut and Emerson Salisbery were third in the 200 freestyle relay in 1:49.79 to J-D’s second-place 1:45.88.
In the opening 200 medley relay it went like it would in the state qualifier with Wales, Jones, Lister and Fisher going 1:54.60, a close second to New Hartford’s 1:54.15, with Thayer, Ceclia, Alicia Snyder and Sophia Ciereck third for CBA in 1:58.02 as they would improve to 1:57.90 in the state qualifier and again finish third.
All of this followed the sectional Class A meet where Fayetteville-Manlius, seeking to get back to the top, earned 331 points but had to settle for second place as Liverpool (374 points) earned its first sectional team title since 2007.
Two Hornets swimmers won individual races as junior Elise Wratney claimed the 100 breaststroke in 1:10.82 beating a field that included Emme Prendergast third in 1:14.37.
Wratney also took third in the 200 IM in 2:22.20, again with Prendergast fifth, and in the state qualifier Wratney improved to 1:10.47 in the 100 breaststroke, which put her third in an event Cooperstown’s Emily Kane won with 1:08.54.
In the Class A 500 freestyle Hornets freshman Meghan Groshans made her way to the title in 5:47.02 to beat out the 5:50.44 from Baldwinsville’s Caydence Szkotak, with Eliza Smith fourth in 5:58.05 to go with a fifth in the 100 butterfly.
Wratney, Gabby Dardis, Audrey Fetterman and Riley Fitzgerald were second (1:58.78) to Cicero-North Syracuse (1:58.10) in the 200 medley relay, with Groshans fifth in the 200 freestyle (2:09.80) and Kelly Liu eighth in the 100 freestyle. Dardis got fifth place in the 100 backstroke in 1:05.76.
