Unbeaten in its first six meets this winter, the Baldwinsville boys swim team faced some struggles when going up against the other top SCAC Metro division sides.
Having lost at home to Liverpool on Jan. 15, the Bees visited Cazenovia College last Tuesday night and would fall again as Fayetteville-Manlius topped them 99-84.
All of this was forgotten, though, when B’ville returned home Thursday and, on Senior Night, broke three different pool records on the way to a 52-32 victory over Cicero-North Syracuse.
Bailey Ludden had the first pool mark, during the 200-yard freestyle, where in one minute, 47.58 seconds he routed the field, including John Burns, who posted 1:58.03.
Then, in the 200 freestyle relay, Ludden and Burns, paired with Nick Schulz and Quinn Gruppe, rolled to 1:33.66 and needed that pool mark since C-NS’s John Harbaugh, Seaver Schultz, Logan Petralia and Dom Bagozzi posted 1:35.34.
Finally, it was Schultz in the 100 breaststroke going 59.06 seconds in the 100 breaststroke, not his fastest time of the winter, but still a pool record.
Elsewhere, Schultz went 54.34 seconds in the 100 butterfly to beat out Burns (56.91) as Ludden won the 500 freestyle in 5:07.58. Aidan Solomon, in 1:04.43, held off Jason Isbell (1:06.30) in the 100 backstroke, with Tristan Miranda first (2:17.26) and Harrison Meyers second (2:23.86) in the 200 individual medley.
Gruppe was second in the 100 freestyle in 53.47 seconds, but he helped close out the meet in a rousing manner, helping Schultz, Ludden and Burns roar to a time of 3:30.01 in the 400 freestyle relay.
In that defeat to F-M two nights earlier, B’ville won the first four races, including the opening 200-yard medley relay where Ludden, Schultz, Burns and Solomon went 1:47.11 to edge F-M’s 1:47.61.
Burns was victorious in the 200 freestyle in 2:01.55, with Schultz going 2:07.54 to pull away in the 200 individual medley and Ludden going 23.83 seconds to comfortably win the 50 freestyle.
But the Hornets swept the diving points and then won five of the next six races, the lone exception a 100 freestyle where Gruppe (53.61 seconds) and Harrison German (56.48) went 1-2.
Some of those races were close, too, such as the 500 freestyle, where Ludden, in 5:06.71, was just behind F-M’s Quinn Smith (5:05.70) as Schultz, in the 100 backstroke, went 59.46 seconds to Smith’s 58.23.
Burns swam the 100 butterfly in 58.64 seconds, trailing the 57.01 from the Hornets’ Lucas Weires, but Burns would pair with Ludden, Schultz and Gruppe to go 3:40.17 in the 400 freestyle relay.
B’ville’s two remaining regular-season meets are on the road as it goes to Fulton next Tuesday and then visits uburn on Feb. 5.
