Baldwinsville — Two points of view could be used to describe the Baldwinsville boys swim team’s 52-42 defeat to Liverpool in Wednesday night’s first-place CNY Counties League showdown at Baker High School pool.
On the one side, the Bees, who were 4-0 going into the meet, could not catch up to the 4-0 Warriors’ depth. But on the other side, B’ville proved its mettle and heart through a series of race wins, two of them decided by tiny fractions.
John Sidorakis earned the first of those close victories in the 200-yard individual medley. Pursued by Liverpool’s Griffin O’Neil and Curtis Merrick, Sidroakis held them off, winning in two minutes, 15.46 seconds, just 0.04 seconds ahead of O’Neil (2:15.50), with Merrick (2:16.72) close behind in third place.
A few races later, in the 100 butterfly, it was even closer. Alex Hiltbrand and hjs Warriors rival, J.J. Ross, nearly touched the wall at the same time, but Hiltbrand did so in 1:00.02 to beat Ross (1:00.03) by one-hundredth of a second as Sidorakis, in 1:02.90, finished third.
Elsewhere, the Bees’ lone relay victory came in the 400 freestyle, where Ryan Hiltbrand, John Licciardello, Jonathan Oad and Brandon Formoza put up a strong race and won in a time of 3:44.16, while the quartet of Evan Bohman, Mark Dickson, Jamus Socker and Matt Moor finished second in 3:51.85.
Ryan Hiltbrand, in 5:27.15, beat out Licciardello (5:27.76) for second place in the 500 freestyle, and the same thing happened in the 200 freestyle, with Hiltbrand second in 1:59.91 and Licciardello (2:01.93) in third place. Liverpool star Nick Burdo won both races, swimming the 200 free in 1:49.01 and the 500 free in 5:17.60.
Also for the Bees, Alex Hiltbrand finished a close second (23.98 seconds) to the Warriors’ Matt Petit (23.80 seconds) in the 50 freestyle, where Dan Watkins was third in 24.67 seconds. Formoza needed 55.34 seconds to beat out Watkins (55.50 seconds) for second place in the 100 freestyle, where Liverpool’s Peyton Sobolewski prevailed in 51.87 seconds.
Nick Schultz finished second in the 100 breaststroke in 1:10.57 behind the Warriors’ Hayato Hirato (1:07.73), also pairing with Sidorakis, Watkins and Alex Hiltbrand to get second place in the 200 medley relay in 1:51.04, exactly one second behind Liverpool’s 1:50.04. Formoza, Watkins, Sidorakis and Hiltbrand got third place in the 200 freestyle relay in 1:38.94.
Still with a 4-1 mark, B’ville is in action again next Wednesday night, visiting Auburn.
