CENTRAL NEW YORK – The Baldwinsville boys swim team would have a strong showing during the Jan. 13 Griffin Sprint Invitational held at Nottingham High School, where the Section III championships will take place in February.
Leading the way, the Bees’ 200-yard freestyle relay team of Mikey White, Ben Webster, Matt Lange and Alex Nicita went one minute, 31.21 seconds 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-yard 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.
As a follow-up, B’ville went to Auburn Wednesday and, improving to 5-3 on the season, put together a 91-71 victory over the Maroons.
It opened with a quick 200 medley relay where White, Clay, Webster and Lange roared to a time of 1:44.17, which foreshadowed more good efforts in the races ahead.
White went 22.99 seconds in the 50 freestyle to go 1-2 with Clay (25.44) and, in the 100 freestyle, won a close race with Lange, going 50.75 to Lange’s second-place 50.92.
Able to win his own race, Lange took the 100 backstroke in 1:00.10, while Nicita would win the 200 freestyle in 2:03.06 as Colin Szkotak was second in 2:15.56.
A close 100 butterfly saw Webster, in 58.39 seconds, edge the 58.98 from Auburn’s Colin Ringwood, with Zach Arnold posting the quickest 100 breaststroke time of 1:22.70.
Closing out the meet, at Auburn White, Lange, Danny Sima and Keenan Smith went 3:51.15 in the 400 freestyle relay as the Bees take on Syracuse next Tuesday and then host Mexico on Jan. 27.
