A perfect December run had the Baldwinsville boys swim team sharing first place in the CNY Counties League with defending Liverpool.
This turned Thursday night’s meet, already a big one due to the neighborhood rivalry between the Bees and Warriors, into a first-place showdown, one where Liverpool got the best of it by a 101-79 margin.
And this happened despite John Licciardello winning a pair of individual races for B’ville. In the 200-yard freestyle, Liccardello posted a time of one minute, 54.49 seconds, with none of his chasers able to break the two-minute mark as Liverpool’s Matt Geary was second in 2:01.28.
Then, in the 500 freestyle, no one could get close to Licciardello as he again gained first place in 5:08.41, well clear of teammate Jonathan Oad, who posted 5:27.81.
The Bees’ only other individual win came from Nick Schultz, who went 1:04.70 to pull away from the Warriors’ Dan Stapleton (1:11.56) and Brandon Nguyen (1:11.73) to take the 100 breaststroke.
Four other times, B’ville had runner-up efforts in individual races, two of them from Alex Hiltbrand, who went 23.05 seconds in the 50 freestyle to finish behind Liverpool’s Tom Griffin (22.49 seconds) before swimming the 100 butterfly in 55.83 seconds, beaten out here by the Warriors’ J.J. Ross in 53.94 seconds.
Evan Bohman was second in the 100 backstroke despite a strong time of 59.60 seconds as Liverpool’s Curtis Merrick prevailed in 57.85 seconds. Ryan Hiltbrand would go 51.51 seconds in the 100 freestyle, yet still was second to Griffin’s 49.84 seconds.
During the 200 freestyle relay, Licciardello, Schultz and the Hiltbrand brothers finished in 1:34.70, but Liverpool won in 1:31.30. It was the same in the 400 freestyle relay, with Oad, Mark Dickson, Bailey Ludden and Jamus Socker second in 3:54.39 and Liverpool (3:37.85) prevailing.
Still at 4-1 on the season, B’ville returns home on Jan. 18 to take on Cicero-North Syracuse.
