BATH — The Morse boys swim team left nothing to chance at the Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference Class B championship meet Friday night.

The Shipbuilders won every event on the way to a repeat championship at the Bath Area Family YMCA. Morse finished with 364 points, while Belfast (291) finished second and Waterville/Winslow (198) was third.

“It’s going to feel even better when we win next year, too,” said Morse junior Gaffney McDonough. “It’s great, because we always have competition. And KVACs is always when we swim our fastest, too.”

After an early back-and-forth with Morse, Camden Hills (406 points) ran away with the KVAC B girls title. Belfast (211), the defending KVAC B champion, finished second, while Morse (172.5) was third.

“Our team worked really hard this season for this title,” Camden Hills senior captain Lily Mott said. “It’s a long time coming, I guess, it feels kind of surreal to have this title (over) many years. We’re thankful for our coaches. It feels really good (to win).”

“It feels super rewarding,” added senior captain Chloe Root. “We worked so hard as a team this year. We’ve gone through a lot, and I’m so, so proud of everyone. It feels great.”

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The Morse boys were led by McDonough, who had wins in the 50 free (21.52) and the 100 fly (52.36).

“We were a little worried (coming into the meet),” McDonough said. “But we had a lot of people move up, a lot of people win events. We had a lot of people who had some great swims. It was just awesome.”

Also for Morse, Anders Savage finished the 100 free in 51.53, junior David Mitchell (5:08.51) won the 500 free, nearly 15 seconds faster than Matthew Levesque of Belfast (5:23.88), who finished second.

The Shipbuilders also picked up wins from junior Sawyer Wright (1:48.61) in the 200 free and sophomore Brady Chubbuck (2:06.57) in the 200 IM. Chubbuck later won the 100 breaststroke with a time of 1:00.65, nearly beating the KVAC record of 59.30.

“They’re all dedicated,” Morse head coach Todd Marco said of his swimmers. “Half of them swim for a club team. Half of them don’t, but they’re all dedicated the same. They push each other.”

Morse also won the 200-medley relay (1:39.94) and wrapped up the night with a record performance, cruising to a victory (3:17.64) in the 400 free relay. The time beat the program’s previous mark — a conference record — of 3:21.64, set in 2005.

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“We make records so they can eventually be broken,” Marco said. “That’s the big goal around here.”

Camden Hills had early wins from Adella Brainerd (2:21.66) in the 200 individual medley and Sally Vannini (55.94) in the 100 free. The Windjammers had an especially strong showing in the 500 free, as freshman Flynn Layton (5:28.89) nabbed a victory while teammate Rana Abess (5:36.14) finished second. The Windjammers also had a win from freshman London Nicolet (1:00.67) in the 100 backstroke.

Camden Hills also won the 200 free relay (1:44.19) and 400 free relay (3:46.44).

“It felt great to just pull away. To kind of run away with (the title) felt awesome,” Camden Hills head coach Mark McCluskey said. “These guys just had the meet of their lives. Honestly, that was even more fun than the wins. These guys are just dropping a ton of time today that, honestly, I didn’t expect them to.”

The Morse girls had a strong opening with wins by Eliza Marco (1:56.60) in the 200-yard freestyle and Elena Trundy (1:02.56) in the 100 butterfly. Marco, a senior, would later break a 10-year-old KVAC record in the 100 breaststroke, with a time of 1:04.55. The previous mark was 1:05.36, set by Kristy Prelgovisk of Messalonskee in 2014.

The Belfast girls had a great performance by senior Maeve Littlefield, who won the 50 free (25.22) and finished second to Vannini in the 100 free (56.90).


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