SYRACUSE – With its regular-season activity behind them, all the work for the Baldwinsville boys swim team is focused on what it will do when it goes back to Nottingham High School for the Section III championships, which starts Saturday with Nick Pompo the favorite in the diving competition before the sectional Class A meet takes place Feb. 12 and the state qualifier two days later.
Before this, though, many top Bees swimmers were at Nottingham last Friday for the “One Last Chance Meet” to try and post more good times to improve their positions before the sectional meet.
By far the highlight for the Bees was its top-five sweep of the 500-yard freestyle. Mason Stever won in five minutes 38.70 seconds over the 5:44.10 of Adrian Clay with Ethan Gramiak going 5:54.30, Cole Dwyer 5:58.32 and Trevor Salzman 5:59.57 to all fit under the six-minute mark.
Stever and Clay went 1-2 in the 200-yard freestyle as Stever posted a top time of one minute 57.98 seconds to top the 2:02.41 from Clay. Graniak finished fifth (2:06.27) and Myles Reynolds was sixth. Alex Nicita won, too, his 1:02.68 topping the field by more than two seconds in the 100 backstroke.
Kevin Milo added a victory in the 100 butterfly, posting 1:06.19 to beat the 1:08.96 from Fayetteville-Manlius’ Silas Kligerman as Marco VanCour was third in 1:10.86.
Owen Nizar’s 55.28 seconds in the 100 freestyle trailed only the 54.18 of F-M’s Anthony Bottar, Nizar adding a second in the 100 breaststroke in 1:15.87 edging VanCour (1:16.80) and Alex Atherton’s 1:17.79.
Salzman added a third in the 200 individual medley in 2:33.59 as Brayden Anders got fifth and Karsten St. John sixth. Paxton Adams went 27.64 seconds for fourth in the 50 freestyle as Dante Milo (28.60) got sixth place.
B’ville was victorious in the 400 freestyle relay with the two top quartets who finished with times of 3:51.19 and 3:52.03, respectively, while taking second to C-NS in both the 200 medley (1:54.96) and 200 freestyle relay, where in 1:39.24 it was just behind the Northstars’ 1:38.63.