November 22, 2024
HIGH SCHOOL SWIMMING

Bangor seniors maintain regular-season victory streak Rams top Indians for 33rd win this season

BANGOR – It was somewhat fitting that Monday’s Bangor-Old Town boys swim meet lacked a lot of drama in the Husson College pool.

After all, that’s what the Rams’ nine seniors have been accustomed to for the past four years.

Those nine swimmers and the rest of the Bangor squad wrapped up an undefeated regular season and four years without a loss in a regular-season dual meet or invitational with a 136-48 victory over Old Town.

“We’ve had close meets, but I’ve never had a meet where there’s been real pressure to swim fast to win the meet,” said Martin Fitch, a senior captain. “It’d be nice to have closer meets, but it’s cool to have an era like this.”

Fitch and his teammates are the second straight group of Bangor seniors to emerge undefeated in the regular season. This year’s bunch is 33-0 in dual meets.

The Rams won 11 of 12 events (Old Town’s Nick Perkins won the 100-yard backstroke, which was the most exciting 1-2 race between the two teams).

Seniors James Bair and Scott Loukes and junior Eric Palmer led Bangor with two individual wins and two relay wins each.

Loukes won the 50 free and the 100 breaststroke, and the sprint specialist swam on the winning 200 medley and 200 freestyle relays.

Palmer took the 200 individual medley and 100 butterfly. He also appeared on the medley and sprint relays.

Bair won the 200 and 500 freestyles, including a season-best in the 500. He also anchored the winning 200 relay, which comes just after the 500.

“What we’re doing now is Coach Emery is trying to see who he wants in the relays in the state meets,” said Bair, who joined the Bangor team this year. “I wanted to put my best foot forward even though I had just got done the 500. I was dead tired, but it was fun to do.”

Perkins and Fitch, who are friends out of the pool, knew earlier in the week they were to meet in the backstroke and agreed to make a real race out of it even though Fitch is more of a freestyle specialist.

Perkins led the entire race, but Fitch was on his back the whole way (the Indian sophomore was about five-tenths of a second up on the Bangor senior at the 50-yard mark). Perkins inched up in the final 25 yards – no surprise to him.

“In most events, I make my move in the last half of the race, the last 25,” Perkins said. “I’ve been working on making my first half better.”

Among the standout swimmers for the Indians was sophomore Shane Bond, who knocked 23 seconds off his 500 free time. He dueled with Bangor freshman Graham Fitch in lanes one and two, respectively. Fitch came out on top by about six-tenths of a second.

“That was a nice race because Shane made it up on every length and [Fitch] beat him on every turn,” Old Town coach Matt Byther said. “They both had a different strength. Shane wanted to qualify [for states], but it was a season-best.”


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