With a great opportunity to hand Baldwinsville its first defeat of the season on Wednesday night, the West Genesee boys swim team could not quite pull it off.
Instead, the Wildcats took a painful 92-91 loss to the Bees, who had started 3-0 with a trio of victories at its home pool, but now added a crucial road win decided when B’ville prevailed in the closing 400-yard freestyle relay in a time of 3:41.98.
Much earlier in the evening, WG had opened by taking the 200 medley relay. Brian Salmons, Ryan Hagadorn, Nate Gdula and Evan Tuthill finished in one minute, 46.49 seconds, and that was just the precursor to Gdula earning a sprint sweep.
In the 50 freestyle, Gdula finished in 22.94 seconds to edge B’ville’s Alex Hiltbrand (23.17 seconds) at the line, while in the 100 freestyle Gdula won in 50.69 seconds, more than a full second ahead of Ryan Hiltbrand (51.86 seconds) as Tuthill took third place in 53.31 seconds.
WG claimed the top three spots in the diving competition, Peter Bowman prevailing with 233.75 points ahead of Adriel Schoeck (186.0 points) and David Puma (162.7 points). It also won the 200 freestyle relay when Tuthill, Hagadorn, Gdula and Matt Shoults posted a time of 1:36.68.
On his own, Hagadorn was victorious in the 100 breaststroke in 1:03.49, edging B’ville’s Nick Schultz (1:03.88) for the top spot as Zach Zoanetti finished third in 1:11.06. All of this put WG in front before B’ville took it back in the last race.
Matt Shoults (2:00.78) and Ryan McMahon (2:09.59) were second and third, respectively, behind the Bees’ John Licciardello (1;57.92) in the 200 freestyle. Alex Shuron was third in the 100 butterfly in 1:06.02 as Shoults took third place (5:41.81) in the 500 freestyle. Salmons got third place in the 100 backstroke in 1:05.29.
After the holiday break, WG ushers in 2017 with a meet Jan. 5 at home against Fayetteville-Manlius.
