BATH — The Morse High School boys and girls high school swim teams took to the pool at the Bath Area Family YMCA for the Class B Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference championships on Friday.

The teams came into the event with plans to continue their season long improvement as they head to the Class B State championships in the next week.

The Shipbuilders were solid all night, grabbing the top spot a combined 16 times out of 25 events, but it was the depth of the Camden Hills girls and Belfast boys that outlasted Morse, taking the respective KVAC titles.

The Camden Hills girls outscored the competition with 321 points, ahead of Morse’s 280. Belfast was third (254), followed by Erskine Academy (128), Maine Central Institute (65), Lincoln Academy (43) and Medomak Valley (23).

On the boys side, Belfast edged Morse, 277-269. Camden Hills was third with 234 points. Lincoln Academy (170), Mt. View (91), Erskine (58), Oceanside (8) and MCI (7) rounded out the boys.

“We had some really good times tonight and a lot of the kids stepped up as the meet went on, getting points we weren’t expecting,” Morse coach Todd Marco said. “We moved up all the way through and the kids swam fast, we can’t complain. We picked up a whole lot of points throughout the meet as it wasn’t that close at the beginning.”

Morse’s Olivia Harper and Ella Martin garnered co-Swimmers of the Meet for the girls, while teammate Dominic Marco was tops for the boys, all voted on by the coaches in attendance.

“We were hoping to win, but we turned out some good times tonight,” said Dominic Marco, who was a member of the last three boys KVAC championship teams. “It would have made it all four years for me. That’s OK though, I was happy with my times and look forward to next week’s states.”

The Class B State meet will be held in Orono, with the boys this upcoming Saturday and the girls on Feb. 18.

Harper set a pair of school records, as well as a KVAC mark, over the course of the evening, something Harper wasn’t overly surprised about.

“I always strive to get my best times and always work hard with my teammates in the pool in practice to hopefully get better times,” Harper said.

Harper’s first individual win of the night came in the 100-yard butterfly when she touched at 55.14, almost a full eight seconds ahead of Kayla Payson of Belfast.

The junior’s record-setting victory came in the 100 backstroke, when she completed the race in 54.22, 10 seconds ahead of Camden Hills’ Phoebe Root.

“It’s such an amazing feeling when you work so hard with the people that support you the most and that really benefits me in the end,” Harper said.

Harper was also a swimmer on both the 200 medley and freestyle relays that both won.

Martin took the 200 and 500 freestyle races. The senior beat Root in the 200 and Belfast’s Kerrigan Smith in the 500. Martin also swam on the 200 medley and the first-place 400 freestyle relay teams.

Hailey Harper was also strong for the hosts, as she was best in the 200 IM and 100 freestyle races as the junior expected the battle with Camden Hills.

“We set it up so everyone could do their best, we set up some good relays, hoping to get some records,” Hailey Harper said. “We always have good battles with Camden Hills around tournament time, so we expected this fight.”

The junior was also a key cog in both the 200 medley and 400 freestyle relay teams.

Senior Emma Warner, who anchored the 200 medley, placed fourth in the 50 freestyle and finished fifth in the 100 freestyle, also had a strong showing for Morse.

Along with the Harper sisters and Martin, freshman Olivia Cunningham swam with the 200 medley relay team, and freshmen Caroline Skroski and Fionna Cashman joined Olivia Harper and Martin on the 200 freestyle team.

Hailey Harper, Warner, Cashman and Martin made up the 400 freestyle relay team that beat out Belfast by almost 10 seconds with a time of 3:55.01.

Boys close

The eight-point deficit the boys had behind first-place Belfast pleased Dominic Marco.

“We weren’t expecting as good as a performance as we got tonight,” Dominic Marco said. “A lot of guys turned in some of their best times tonight.”

The senior won the 200 freestyle, 100 breaststroke, and was a key member in the 200 medley and freestyle relay teams en route to the boys Swimmer of the Meet honors.

The freestyle team set both school and conference records with a time of 1:30.87, led by Brandon Johnson’s 21.66 time in the final leg.

The senior was also the conference’s best swimmer in the 50 freestyle, touching in at 21.98, ahead of Mt. View’s Jack Valleau. Morse’s Alex Gurney finished third in the 50.

“It feels really cool,” Johnson said when asked how it felt to be a KVAC champ. “It was also really cool to be part of school records here tonight.”

Johnson also placed second in the 100 freestyle, two-hundredths of a second behind Camden’s Connor O’Farrell (49.74-49.76). Gurney also turned in a third-place performance in the race (52.33).

Johnson, Gurney and Dominic Marco were joined by Evan Willertz in capturing the 200 medley. Willertz also won the 200 IM and 100 backstroke. The sophomore was also a swimmer on the record-setting 200 freestyle team.

While victory is always sweet, both Coach Marco and his swimmers realize that there is a bigger prize out there.

“The kids are swimming fast and I hope they can carry it through (to states),” the Morse coach said.

“We all didn’t expect to have some of the times that we did today, so hopefully that will carry into next week as we’re hopeful we can score some points,” Hailey Harper added.

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