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.
J-D and Christian Brothers Academy would swim against one another and the Red Rams, earning 564 points, easily claimed victory with the Brothers’ 402 points putting it in the runner-up spot.
Evelyn Jones and Thearyn 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 Cora 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 Nov. 22-23 state championships at Webster Aquatic Center near Rochester.
A close 200 individual medley had CBA’s Madison Ceclia, in 2:24.37, half a second ahead of the 2:24.87 from the Rams’ Maggie 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 the same with Wales, Jones, Lister and Maria 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.
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.
This followed a 500 freestyle where 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.
In diving, J-D and CBA 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.
