ITHACA – Lucas Clay and Mikey White were the leaders for the Baldwinsville boys swim team in a winter where it won the program’s first-ever Section III Class A championship and went undefeated in the regular season.
Now they went to Ithaca College for last weekend’s New York State Public High School Athletic Association championships, joined by fellow Bees Alex Nicita, Matt Lange and Mason Stever, in two different relay events while also making big statements in individual races, too.
White was seventh-seeded in the 200 freestyle with a season-best time of 1:43.35 and, in the 100 freestyle, looked to improve upon going 47.47 seconds.
With a 1:41.95 in the 200 freestyle preliminary round, White dropped more than a second off his previous school record and was the fifth-fastest qualifier for Saturday’s finals, where he almost matched that time with 1:41.96 and take seventh place to reach the medal podium, not far from the third-place 1:40.61 by his Section III teammate, Jamesville-DeWitt/CBA’s Misha Kabunov.
Moving to the 100 freestyle, White’s 47.34 seconds in the preliminary round, followed by a swift 46.70 in the finals, broke his own school mark two more times and ultimately put him 14th in the state standings, the win going to Scarsdale’s Kevin Jiang in 45.31.
As for Clay, he was fifth-seeded in the 100 breaststroke with a school-record 57.20 seconds. His 58.76 got Clay to the final where, in 57.26, he equaled White’s seventh-place effort and was fifth in the public-school division, with West Hampton Beach’s Max Bucheh winning in 54.28. Also swimming in the 500 freestyle, Clay took to 29th place in 4:52.23.
White, Nicita, Stever and Lange had a time of 1:29.49 in the 200 freestyle relay. After a 1:29.94 qualifying effort, the quartet went 1:28.54 in the finals to finish 14th overall, yet another school record with White’s initial 21.60 a school record at that distance.
Then, in the 400 freestyle relay, Clay joined White, Nicita and Lange. The Bees went 3:15.61 in the qualifying round and then, in the finals, shattering that school mark by more than two seconds at 3:13.09 to win its consolation race and finish seventh in the NYSPHSAA standings for yet another trip to the podium while finishing 11th overall.
Then there was Nicolas Pompo, who in his first year of diving competition had earned a qualifying score of 555.35 points that put him in the top five going into last Friday’s state finals.
Here, Pompo would earn 415.75 points, earning 10th place overall but eighth among NYSPHSAA divers. That put him on the podium with Central Square’s Truman Reminicky, who was fourth with 459.10. Matthew Wong, from Francis Lewis High School in Queens, was the overall winner in 504.85 and Suffern’s Luke Leale the public-school champion with 504.60.
