SYRACUSE – Mikey White’s success in sprint races helped push the Baldwinsville boys swim team to a fifth-place finish in Wednesday’s Section III Class A championship meet at Nottingham High School.
White was victorious in the 50-yard freestyle, where he had already qualified for March’s state meet, but improved his best time to 22.10 seconds to beat out the 22.26 from Cicero-North Syracuse’s Jacob Griffin.
Later, in the 100 freestyle, White’s time of 47.83 seconds beat the state qualifying standard of 48.76 by nearly a full second, putting him runner-up to the 46.68 from Jamesville-DeWitt/CBA standout Nathaniel Wales.
B’ville has already reached the state meet in the 200 freestyle relay, and was fourth here as White, paired with Matthew Lange, Ben Webster and Alex Nicita, finished fourth in 1:31.30.
To close out the meet, in the 400 freestyle relay White, Lange, Webster and Lucas Clay finished in 3:19.26, nearly reaching the state standard of 3:18.87 and second as, again, J-D/CBA won with 3:16.55.
B’ville, overall, had 202 points, a strong effort even as it could not keep up with J-D/CBA, who, propelled by wins in six different events, rolled to the team title with 365 points.
Lange contended in the 200 freestyle, his time of 1:48.04 just missing the state qualifying standard of 1:47.60 and putting him third behind J-D/CBA’s Misha Kabunov (1:45.09) and Fulton’s Bryce Rogers (1:47.51).
In the 100 freestyle, Lange finished fifth in 49.51 seconds, less than a second from reaching the state meet as Alex Nicita got 18th place in 54.58.
Clay, in the 100 breaststroke, made it to third place in 1:03.05, just behind the winning 1:02.44 from Oswego’s Treyse Miller. Clay also got sixth place in the 200 individual medley in 2:07.49, improving on his season best by more than two seconds.
Jayden Miranda was eighth in the 500 freestyle, his 5:32.91 well faster than the 5:43.43 he had earlier this winter, to go with a 15th in the 100 backstroke in 1:05.50.
Nicita, Clay, Miranda and Keenan Smith were 10th in the 200 medley relay in 1:51.14. Webster also was ninth in the 100 butterfly in 56.93 seconds and 11th in the 50 freestyle in 23.54, with Nicita (24.45) in 19th place.
All of this led to the state qualifier, where B’ville finished sixth with 157.5 points, but the bigger story was what it accomplished in two relays.
Though they finished fourth in the 200 freestyle relay, White, Webster, Lange and Nicita reached the exact time of 1:30.12 they needed to swim again at the state meet.
And needing 3:18.87 in the 400 freestyle relay, the Bees reached it when White, Lange, Webster and Clay went 3:18.44, second only to J-D/CBA’s winning 3:15.66.
On his own, White, in the 50 freestyle, tied Griffin’s 22.12 but trailed the winning 21.83 from Oneida’s Andrew Hicks as, in the 100 freestyle, White was third in 48.22 and Lange sixth in 49.76.
Clay got to second place in the 100 breaststroke, his 1:01.60 again just missing the 1:01.20 needed for the state meet as New Hartford’s Hassan Abdelwahad won in 1:00.08. Clay also took 10th in the 200 IM in 2:07.75 as Lange finished fifth in the 200 freestyle in 1:51.70.
