A fine December run by the Baldwinsville boys swim team ended with a string of victories and top times during a Dec. 28 charity meet at West Genesee High School.
This inaugural event, the Gary Griffin Sprint Meet, was held in memory of the late swim coach who found the Weedsport boys program in 1968 and coached it until 2003. Griffin passed away in December 2017.
In all, 11 events were contested, two relays plus nine individual races, none of them longer than 100 yards, with special 50-yard events in the butterfly, backstroke and breaststroke.
B’ville won seven of the 11 events, including both relays. Nick Schultz, Alex Hiltbrand, John Licciardello and Bailey Ludden went a season-best one minute, 43.43 seconds to take the 200 medley relay, and that same quartet returned to finish first in the 200 freestyle relay, edging Liverpool, 1:34.06 to the Warriors’ 1:34.28.
Schultz also won twice on his own, needing 28.57 seconds to beat the field in the 50-yard breaststroke as no one else broke the 29-second mark. Then Schultz went 1:02.32 to hold off West Genesee’s Ryan McMahon (1:03.79) in the 100 breaststroke.
Hiltbrand dominated the 50 freestyle, his time of 22.45 seconds more than a second ahead of Syracuse’s Belal Hamad (23.51) and the field. Then, in the 100 butterfly, Hiltbrand roared to victory in 55.40 seconds, the only time under the one-minute mark as John Burns got second place in 1:00.02.
In the 100 freestyle, Ludden prevailed, his time of 52.24 seconds just clear of Jamesville-DeWItt/CBA’s Conlan Rourke (52.41) as Licciardello finished third in 52,43 seconds.
Ludden posted 24.35 seconds in the 50 freestyle, behind Schultz’s 23.99. Licciardello made his way to fourth place in the 100 backstroke in 59.80 seconds. Eric Smith was 10th in the 50 breaststroke in 33.80 seconds.
B’ville appeared Saturday in the Yeti Invitational at Webster Schroeder, near Rochester, where it earned 191 points to finish fifth in a 12-team field, but did plenty of important stuff in individual events.
With a fourth-place time of 22 seconds flat in the 50 freestyle, Hiltbrand qualified for March’s state championship meet since the qualifying standard is 22.19 seconds. Hiltbrand also took third place in the 100 freestyle in 49.17 seconds.
Schultz also secured his state championship berth by going under the qualifying standard of 1:01.20 in the 100 breaststroke, his time of 1:00.31 second to Canandaigua’s Tom Chapman, who won in 59.50 seconds.
Licciardello, Schultz, Hlitbrand and Ludden got to third place in the 200 medley relay in a season-best 1:41.77 and were also third in the 200 freestyle relay in 1:30.99, improving on its previous time this winter by more than three seconds.
Ludden finished fifth in the 200 freestyle in 1:52.78, with Licciardello eighth in 1:54.29. Burns was eighth in the 100 butterfly in 58.33 seconds.
The Bees host Weedsport Monday before taking on Pulaski/Sandy Creek Thursday afternoon.
