OWEGO – After sending 11 of their swimmers into the finals in the preliminary meet Wednesday night, Norwich was able to capture fourth place as a team in the Section IV Class B Championships, held at Owego High School Saturday.

After breaking the school record on Wednesday, the Purple Tornado’s Kaitlyn Blaisure started the 200 yard freestyle event out by touching the wall in fifth but the a close race as the top six teams were within tenths of a second. The team moved into first with Maya Blaisure’s split of 25.81 and stayed in first after Carlson kept pace.

Despite swimming a great split of 25.20, Winter was caught by Maria Pignatelli of Maine-Endwell – who swam a brisk 23.80 seconds in 50 yards – the Norwich foursome placed second in the event by .15 of a second.

In the first event of the day, the Norwich team took on the field in the 200 yard medley relay. Melissa Stroh swam the first leg, the backstroke, of the event and set her team into fifth place. Maya Blaisure moved her team up to fourth and that is where the team stayed for the remainder of the race with Margie Winter maintaining the pace and Angela Carlson slightly closing the gap. 

Immediately after getting out the of the pool from the 200 yard medley relay, Blaisure began to prepare for the 200 yard freestyle event. First she was able to have a moment to breathe while her teammates Emerson Burton and Hailey Shattuck hopped onto the starting blocks for the B final. 

Shattuck took a shot out of the blocks, swimming a first split 30.84, putting her in second place. Following the next leg, Shattuck held the first place position in the pool with teammate Burton not far behind. 

Burton then kicked it into another gear, swimming to a 35.60 third leg time moving into third. She finished the final split of the race and moved into the second of the B final, ultimately giving her a 10th place finish and a personal best time in the event. Shattuck finished 14th.

Blaisure’s quick rest helped her secure a third place start off the block. She held the same pace for the next 150 yards of the race to stand on near the top of the podium at third.

The Norwich senior also brought home a third place finish in the 100 yard breaststroke, finishing with a time of 1:11.21.

Adding more points to Norwich’s team total were teammates Riley Revoir, who came in sixth place in the A final, and Ashton Wenzel by finishing 14th (sixth in the B final) in the event.

Three Purple Tornado swimmers battled in the pool for the 50 yard freestyle podium in the A final. The top eight in the event all finished within two seconds of each other while the first five that came in were separated by a full second.