BAINBRIDGE’S BEST EVER: Spartans win second place at state championships

Published 11:41 am Saturday, February 27, 2016

Better than expected.

Make that — better than ever.

Bainbridge Spartan Coach Greg Colby thought the BHS boys swimming and diving team would crack the top five at this year’s state 3A meet.

Boy, did they ever.

Powered by a total team effort — a highly capable cadre of freshman swimmers joining with a seasoned squad of varsity veterans — the Spartans won second place at the 2016 Boys 3A State Swimming & Diving Championships last weekend at the King County Aquatic Center in Federal Way.

The Spartans came up short only to the too-deep Bellevue Wolverines, who took the team title with 349.5 points. Bainbridge tallied 288, while Mercer Island followed in third with 205.5.

The second-place team trophy was the best finish ever for the Spartans in the team’s 26-year history.

“I thought it was a great meet,” Colby said. “I thought they swam about as well as they could, given all the circumstances.”

Those circumstances included some Spartan swimmers who were ill during the two-day state meet, but there’s no calling in sick when a state title hangs in the balance.

“You still have to get in there and compete to the best of your ability,” Colby said.

It was also a great finish to a season that started with a complete downer: Coach Kaycee Taylor had to step down after being diagnosed with cancer, and Colby — the Spartans’ longtime girls swim coach who has previously assisted with the boys team — took the helm.

Colby, who has a well-known reputation of scoring out the state meet before the first splash in preliminaries, said this year’s finish for Bainbridge was even better than expected.

“I expected them to be a top three team,” Colby said after the meet.

BHS had multiple medalists, however, with the Spartans heading to the medal stand after the very first event when the 200-yard medley relay team of senior Sam Alpaugh and freshmen Kevin Houseman, Makai Ingalls and Aidan Wagner placed second in 1:36.28.

The foursome shaved off a few seconds from their preliminary race (1:38.20), but Bellevue did as well, winning in 1:35.26.

In the next event, the 200-yard freestyle, Parker Bushey claimed fifth place for Bainbridge in 1:43.88, while teammate James Bullock was third in the B Final race with 1:46.57.

Three Spartans advanced out of Friday’s prelims in the 50-yard freestyle to race on Saturday.

Ingalls claimed ninth place in the A Final, with a time of 22.13.

Wagner and fellow Spartan Andy Yalung competed in the B Final, and finished 14th and 16th overall, respectively, with times of 22.66 and 22.96.

Ingalls also won sixth place in the 100-yard butterfly, with a time of 51.94.

As a freshman, it was his first state meet, obviously, but he had competed before at the King County Aquatic Center in club swimming competitions.

Being on high school swimming’s biggest stage is something he’ll long remember, he said.

“I’ll always remember it as my first state meet. I’ll remember how I did well in some parts, and not so well in others,” Ingalls said.

“And I’ll try to do better next year,” he added.

Bushey claimed Bainbridge’s next medal in the 100-yard freestyle, and the BHS junior finished in 47.61 during Saturday’s final.

That race was one of many that featured multiple Bellevue swimmers, which helped the Wolverines add to their point total and slip away from the rest of the pack.

In the 500-yard freestyle, Bainbridge swimmers missed the cut for a shot at a medal Saturday, but Alpaugh and Bullock swam in the B Final and finished an eyeblink apart at 12th and 13th, respectively, at 4:53.04 and 4:53.08.

Bainbridge got back into title contention for the 200-yard freestyle relay with the foursome of Ingalls, Garrett Waite, Wagner and Bushey.

The quartet claimed second place with a time of 1:27.36, an improvement over the previous day’s finish at 1:28.91.

Bellevue also dropped its time for the win, improving to 1:25.57 from 1:27.59 on Friday.

Waite had another impressive showing in the 100-yard backstroke, a nail-biter of a race where he finished fourth in 52.41, just a little more than a second behind the first-place finisher. Alpaugh was right behind in seventh place, and earned a spot on the medal stand with a time of 53.68.

Fellow Spartan John Velisaris, also a freshman, came in second in the B Final on Saturday with a time of 55.38 that was good for 10th place overall.

Two Spartans earned medals in the 100-yard breaststroke. Houseman was fifth (58.87) and Carter Hall, also a ninth-grader, was eighth (1:00.85). Aron Markow, a BHS freshman, won the B Final and ninth place overall for Bainbridge in 1:00.36. Wagner finished at 14th overall in the B Final in 1:02.86.

Bainbridge’s last medal came in the meet’s last race, the 400-yard freestyle relay.

Bushey, Bullock, Henry Bacon and Waite raced to third place in 3:15.95; a nice drop from their preliminary time of 3:19.03.

And in 1-meter diving, Spartan senior Gabe Emert finished in ninth place during preliminaries on Friday with a score of 155.35.

Fellow Spartan Dylan Garthwaite was 14th, with 134.85 points.

In the finals, Emert placed 10th (306.80 points), and Garthwaite, 14th (284.10).

Despite the fantastic finish as the state’s No. 2 team, Waite admitted the Spartans had set their sights a little higher before the start of the meet.

“At the very first practice we had, Coach Greg was talking about how no one has won state in the history of Bainbridge High School swimming. That just kind of stuck with me,” Waite recalled.

“Then Jeb Bullock, one of the captains on our team, before our team cheer [at the state meet], he was talking about, ‘It’s time to make history and get first at state,’” Waite said.

Being hot on the heels of the Wolverines throughout the meet will be an everlasting memory.

“Chasing down Bellevue, that’s definitely something I’ll remember,” he said. “And also just being in A finals, and also on the podium as a freshman, I think that’s an accomplishment in itself.”

There were a few other choice moments, to be sure.

Waite broke the school record twice at the state meet in the 100-yard backstroke, busting the previous best years ago by Todd McCarthy, then setting a new mark again on Saturday.

Even so, it was Bellevue that he was looking to beat.

“One of the guys I was racing, the guy who got first in 100 back, at districts, he went a 54. And I was thinking I could beat him at state, but he went down to a 51 out of nowhere. And then did the same thing in finals,” Waite said.

Still, that 100-back race was something special for an entirely different reason, the swimmer added.

“I got to race Sam Alpaugh. He’s a senior on our team and we’ve been talking about this race that we were going to have — 100 back, state finals — we’ve been talking about that for years. It was really fun to race against him,” Waite said.