While it might not have produced everything that it wanted out of Thursday’s Section III Class A championships at Nottingham High School, the Baldwinsville boys swim team still achieved one of its most important goals.
With its victory in the closing race, the 400-yard freestyle relay, the Bees achieved the time it needed to join its other two relay sides that had already earned berths in the March 1-2 state championships at Long Island’s Nassau County Aquatic Center.
B’ville’s primary quartet of seniors Alex Hiltbrand and John Licciardello, joined by juniors Nick Schultz and Bailey Ludden, had already won the 200 medley relay to open the sectional meet, finishing in a school-record 1:39.25 to fend off Watertown (1:39.38) for that top spot.
Now, with Hiltbrand starting off, the Bees quickly went into the lead in the 400 freestyle relay, and Schultz, Licciardello and Ludden, in that order, kept adding to the margin until they finished in 3:17.42, comfortably under the 3:18.87 needed to reach the state meet and ahead of Watertown’s runner-up 3:19.77.
This came right after the 100 breaststroke, won by Schultz as, in 58.22 seconds, he improved upon his previous best time of 1:00.31 by more than two seconds and beat out Fayetteville-Manlius’ Tanner Eisenhut (59.83) for the race win.
Schultz is also going to the state meet in the 200 individual medley after zooming to a time of 1:59.65, nearly a second faster than the 2:00.63 needed and third in the sectional race behind Eisenhut (1:57.15) and Watertown’s Nate Carlos (1:59.08).
Hiltbrand, the top seed in the 50 freestyle going into the sectional meet, claimed the victory, not quite matching his 21.65 seconds from earlier this season, but winning in 21.69 seconds over Watertown’s Simon Stratton (21.87).
Later, in the 100 butterfly, Hiltbrand, already qualified for the state meet in this race, got third place in 53.50 seconds behind Jamesville-DeWitt/CBA’s Chris Bushnell (52.81) and Carlos (53.08).
In the sectional team standings, B’ville picked up 256 points, unable to dethrone Liverpool, who maintained its title with 342 points as F-M was second (317 points) and Watertown (294 points) finished third.
Licciardello was fourth in the 200 freestyle in 1:52.59, with Ludden, in 1:53.46, edging out John Burns (1:53.74) for sixth place, while in the 500 freestyle Licciardello zoomed to fourth place in 5:05.53, improving upon his previous best time this winter by more than 13 seconds.
Burns also finished seventh in the 100 butterfly in 56.63 seconds. Ludden was sixth in the 100 freestyle in 50.42 seconds as Burns, Quinn Gruppe, Harrison German and Harrison Meyers were ninth in the 200 freestyle relay in 1:41.45.
B’ville moved from the sectional Class A meet to Saturday’s state qualifier, also at Nottingham, where it again finished fourth behind Liverpool, F-M and Watertown, but found plenty of success throughout the meet.
Hiltbrand just missed his 50 freestyle time from the sectional meet, but in 21.71 seconds edged Stratton (21.72) by one-hundredth of a second before he improved to 53.08 seconds in the 100 butterfly, though still third behind Bushnell (52.25) and Carlos (52.63) as Burns was seventh in 57 seconds flat.
Repeating his earlier victory in the 100 breaststroke, Schultz this time went 59.47 seconds, the only time under a minute as Eisenhut was second in 1:00.54. In the 200 IM, Schultz claimed fourth place in 2:01.12.
Schultz, Hiltbrand, Licciardello and Ludden improved to 3:16.17 in the 400 freestyle relay to improve upon the school record they set two days earlier and finish second to Watertown’s 3:15.37. They were also second in the 200 medley relay in 1:39.92, inches behind J-D/CBA’s winning 1:39.72.
Licciardello got sixth place in the 200 freestyle in 1:52.70 and sixth in the 500 freestyle in 5:11.84, with Ludden seventh in the 100 freestyle, improving to 50.58 seconds.
