Swim Meet: Morse, Cony in split at Bath YMCA

Morse’s Olivia Harper emerges from beneath the surface after her turn during the 100 backstroke in Tuesday’s KVAC swim meet against Cony in Bath. Harper beat her own pool record with a time of 55.39. (Eric Maxim /The Times Record)

BATH — According to both coaches for the Cony and Morse high school swim teams, it’s important to have meets like this late in the season, looking to gauge themselves against strong competition.

Tuesday’s Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference meet at the Bath Area Family YMCA provided that opportunity for two of the conference’s deeper teams.

The Morse boys outscored the Rams, 91-75, with multiple wins from Brandon Johnson and Daniel Whitman and a sweep of all three relays.

Shipbuilder Olivia Harper broke her own pool record in the 100-yard backstroke (55.39), but it was the Cony girls that took advantage of its depth to swim to a 91-79 victory.

“It’s good to have these races this time of year,” Morse coach Todd Marco said. “It’s not good going into championship meets with no (competitive) races all year and realizing you’re not as good as you thought you were.”

“Morse is one of those few teams that we can go against where we get good races,” Cony coach John Millett said. “Their coach and I swim together and we talk about how we can get our kids swimming faster. This was good preparation for the meets that matter.

“I approached the meet as I had specific things for specific individuals, those were the things we worked on. I didn’t care about scores, I totally cared about them accomplishing

Morse’s Jacob Brochu competes in Tuesday’s KVAC swim meet at the Bath Area Family YMCA. (Eric Maxim / The Times Record)

what we had set for goals.”

Boys

The Shipbuilders took care of things early, taking the 200-medley relay (Evan Willertz, Dom Marco, Johnson, Ethan Pascuzzo), with Johnson (200 free) and Whitman (200 IM) capturing individual events.

Morse’s Oscar Hennin races to the finish in the 50-yard freestyle race Tuesday night at Bath Area Family YMCA. (Eric Maxim / The Times Record)

Morse’s Dom Marco edged Cony’s Cade Parker in the 50 freestyle (23.44-23.78), while finishing second to Cony’s Nate Berry in the 100 butterfly (53.82-57.52).

Willertz took first in the 100 freestyle (50.24), before Johnson dominated the field in the 500 freestyle, finishing a full 1:07.48 ahead of the next best swimmer.

“I’m trying to build myself up to beat records on the board, that’s my goal,” the senior said. “Every time I do this, I push myself towards them.”

Berry (54.47) kept Cony alongside Morse, winning his second event of the evening, taking first in the 100 backstroke, ahead of Willertz (55.87).

“Both Cony teams are really good, the boys have Nate Berry, so we set up some good races there,” Todd Marco said. “We always want to try to win the meet. We had some good times and some good races tonight.”

A highlight of the evening came in the 200-freestyle relay, when Morse found itself trailing Cony after three legs of the event. With Cony’s Gabriel Biasuz already in the pool ahead of him, Johnson dove in for the final leg and took off from there. The senior propelled past Biasuz, sending the team to the win.

“That’s my stroke, the 50 free is my best, I’ve always been a sprinter,” Johnson said.

Morse’s Addie Jung swims in the 100 butterfly event in Tuesday’s swim meet in Bath. (Eric Maxim / The Times Record)

Girls fall

The Cony girls scored early and often. The 200-medley relay team edged Ella Martin, Haily Harper, Olivia Harper and Emma Warner by 58-hundreths of a second to start the evening.

Martin won her first of two events in the 50 freestyle with a time of 24.70 and later was tops in the 100 freestyle, winning the event by almost 10 full seconds.

Other than Olivia Harper’s record-setting victory, no other Shipbuilder reached the top of the scoring, with Cony’s Cecilia Guadalupi and Emma Thomas keeping Morse out of the top spot, each winning a pair of events for the Rams.

The Morse relay team of Martin, Warner and both Harper sisters captured the 200 freestyle, taking down the Rams by just over 10 seconds.

“Whenever we face a really good team, we always have the mindset that we want to work hard and always do our best,” Olivia Harper said. “Definitely Cony, as Todd Marco said, is our biggest competitor points wise and they’re always a good team and we always love to race them.”

But the junior was already looking ahead to the next big prize.

“We’re getting ready for that big meet and really focusing on getting good times. We’re always super excited to compete at the KVAC’s. It’s one of our favorite meets,” Harper said. “We love to interact with all of the different swimmers, getting the real race experience.”

Morse will host the KVAC Class B meet on Feb. 8. Prior to that, the Shipbuilders hit the pool next on Feb. 1 at home against Belfast at 7 p.m.