In its last regular-season home meet, the Baldwinsville boys swim team had little difficulty improving its record to 6-1, claiming each of the first nine races on the card in Wednesday night’s 53-39 victory over Cicero-North Syracuse.
It all began in the 200-yard medley relay, where the Bees’ quartet of Jonathan Oad, Evan Bohman, John Burns and Mark Dickson finished in one minute, 56.37 seconds to edge the Northstars (1:56.90) by less than a second. Two races later, Oad, in a time of 2:15.07, and Dickson (2:18.40) went 1-2 in the 200 individual medley.
The Hiltbrand brothers would win two individual races apiece. Alex Hiltbrand got going in the 100 butterfly with a quick time of 56.37 seconds as Burns finished second in 1:02.29, while in the 100 backstroke Alex was victorious in 1:00.09 as Bohman (1:02.97) was close behind.
Meanwhile, Ryan Hiltbrand swept the sprint races. In the 50 freestyle, Ryan roared to a victory in 24.04 seconds, edging C-NS’s Steve Cooley (24.13 seconds) for that top spot, while in the 100 freestyle Ryan won in 52.74 seconds, holding off the Northstars’ Sean Payrot (53.31 seconds) to do so.
John Licciardello emerged in a tough 200 freestyle race as, in 1:56.38, he pulled away from C-NS’s Nick Engell (1:58.88) for the title, also finishing third in the 100 freestyle (54.23 seconds) as Brandon Formosa, in a clocking of 5:26.24, beat Engell (5:27.24) by exactly one second to take the 500 freestyle.
One more big B’ville victory came in the 200 freestyle relay, where Alex and Ryan Hiltbrand, paired with Licciardello and Formoza, roared to first place in 1:37.61, more than two seconds ahead of C-NS (1:40.10) at race’s end. That same quartet swam the 400 freestyle relay in 3:35.80.
B’ville faces Syracuse City next Monday at Nottingham High School, the same venue to which it will return Feb. 16 and 18 for the Section III championships.
