SYRACUSE – With each meet and with each dive, Baldwinsville’s Nick Pompo only seems to display greater skill and art, which makes him a step above all of his Section III competition.
Pompo did this again during last Saturday’s Section III diving championships at Nottingham High School, setting a new personal mark on his way to victory in both the overall event and in the Class A division.
Pushed by rivals like Cicero-North Syracuse’s Nate Ornoski and Jamesville-DeWitt/CBA’s Cameron Corona, Pompo would build his total to 574.8 points, with Ornoski second at 528.8 and Corona third at 510.05.
This trio, along with C-NS’s Carter Canastra (487.15) and J-D/CBA’s Garrett Fuller (470.2), all will represent Section III in the March 7 New York State Public High School Athletlic championships at Ithaca College.
They all competed against each other again in Tuesday’s sectional state qualifier – and Pompo again established a school mark impressing with a total of 576.15 points. Only Corona, who was second with 534.44 points, got close to Pompo’s totals.
When the B’ville boys swimmers arrived at Nottingham Wednesday for its sectional Class A meet, it was trying to defend the first-ever sectional team title it earned a season ago – but could not quite do so.
Still, by picking up 291 points the Bees won a close contest with J-D/CBA (278) and Liverpool (258) for the runner-up spot behind Fayetteville-Manlius, who leaned on the depth of its roster to win the sectional title with 416 points.
Mason Stever and Alex Nicita contended in the 100-yard freestyle. In 49.20 seconds, Stever was second and closed in on the state qualifying standard of 48.76 trailing only the 48.16 from Fulton’s Logan Ames.
Nicita got third place in 49.70, but did better in the 200 freestyle where he post 1:47.39, second only to the 1:44.90 of J-D/CBA standout Misha Kabunov but still good enough to qualify for the state meet.
Stever swam to a third-place time of 22.31 in the 50 freestyle, again close to the 22.19 needed to reach the state meet as Ames won here, too, posting 21.31 to edge the 21.32 of Liverpool’s Jack Cavallerano.
Working together in the 400 freestyle relay, Nicita and Stever, joined by Marco VanCour and Alex Atherton, finished second in 3:23.36 to J-D/CBA’s 3:20.62, while Adrian Clay helped Nicita, Stever and VanCour get third in the 200 freestyle relay in 1:34.14.
Van Cour swam well in the 500 freestyle, making his way to fourth place in a season-best 5:14.89, while Clay got fourth place in the 100 breaststroke posting 1:03.11.
Owen Nizar was sixth in the 100 backstroke in 59.99 seconds. Atherton, ninth in the 100 backstroke (1:02.93), went 57.70 for seventh place in the 100 butterfly. Clay was eighth in the 200 individual medley in 2:16.17 edging Nizar (2:17.22) in ninth place.
Two days later in the sectional state qualifier, B’ville finished third with 194 points behind F-M and New Hartford, who won the George Falwell Cup earning 354 points.
Stever improved to a personal-best 48.84 seconds for sixth place in the 100 freestyle and nearly equaled his 50 freestyle from the Class A meet but settled for sixth place in 22.32. Clay set a season mark with 1:01.96 in the 100 breaststroke, less than a second from the state qualifying standard of 1:01.20, to earn sixth place.
VanCour got ninth in the 200 freestyle in 1:52.46 and went 5:11.50 in the 500 freestyle to again finish ninth, with Nizar ninth in the 100 backstroke improving to 59.67 seconds. The Bees were fourth in the 400 freestyle relay in 3:25.06, went 1:32.81 in the 200 freestyle relay for fifth place and was sixth in the 200 medley relay in 1:44.71.
