CENTRAL NEW YORK – Once at 1-3, the Baldwinsville boys swim team has built a three-meet win streak in the early days of 2023, extending it in last Tuesday’s trip to Weedsport.
The Bees put away the Warriors 87-64, piling up points through a string of 1-2 finishes in early races including the 50-yard freestyle where Alex Nicita, in 24.26 seconds, won and Mason Stever was second in 25.63.
Matt Lange was impressive in the 100 backstroke, posting a top time of 1:01.24 as Zach Sauro was second in 1:18.97. Right after, in the 100 breaststroke, Lucas Clay went 1:07.31 ahead of Cole Dwyer’s 1:18.30.
On the relay side, Clay, Lange, Danny Sima and Mikey White went 1:41.65 in the 200 medley, finishing first, while White and Nicita, joined by Elijah Bettinger and Marco VanCour, had a time of 3:50.17 in the 400 freestyle relay.
White went 55.95 seconds in the 100 butterfly for first-place points but was behind the 54.46 from Weedsport’s Gavin Van Kersbergen, who also went 2:02.64 in the 200 individual medley to top White’s 2:06.03.
Three days later, B’ville found itself at Nottingham High School for the Griffin Sprint Invitational, where the Section III championships will take place in February.
Leading the way, the Bees’ 200-yard freestyle relay team of White, Lange, Nicitia and Ben Webste went 1:31.21 to inch closer to the state qualifying standard of 1:30.12 and finish nearly two seconds ahead of runner-up Oneida’s 1:33.06.
Individually, White nearly won the 100 individual medley, his time of 56.29 seconds only behind the 55.27 from Skaneateles’ Gavin Van Kersbergen as Lange was seventh in 59.84.
Also, White went 22.47 seconds to finish third in the 50 freestyle, not far Hicks, who won in 22.25 as Nicita (24.14) was 12th.Lange had his own fifth-place finish, going 27.17 in the 50 backstroke
Lucas Clay gained third place in the rarely-contested 50 breaststroke in 29.63 seconds as Oneida’s Sun-Jin Shah won in 29.14 and Webster (30.76) took 10th place to go with his fifth in the 50 butterfly in 25.53.
