BRUNSWICK

At least on the boys side, the Mt. Ararat High School swimming team is at a pretty big disadvantage when it comes to numbers. With just six male swimmers, if someone is out sick or can’t make a meet, the Eagles can’t even field a full set of relays.

Even with everyone in place, it’s often six versus a much larger team. On Friday night at Bowdoin College, that team was Messalonskee, and despite swimming well and getting a better idea of where it stands as a team, Mt. Ararat had a lot of ground to cover.

The visiting boys took the meet, 109-57.

“We can only work with what we have,” Mt. Ararat boys coach Steven Butts said. “We’ve got six boys and they’re fantastic boys. They’ve worked tremendously hard, they’ve done a great job for us. Obviously, we’d love to have more but it just is what it is. Even if we just had bodies, if we could fill every lane in every race, that would make a huge difference. That’s the biggest challenge.”

For what the Eagles do have, though, the competition is strong. Robert Hyde took first place in Friday’s 200-yard freestyle race and Devin Hoskins narrowly won the 200 IM race (2:17.31). Hoskins also took second in the 100 butterfly and Max Bickford finished second in the 100 backstroke.

“I thought our kids swam well,” Butts said. “We’ve been having a strong season all year and that’s continued. A lot of best times, which is what we focus on. That was great.”

In some races, Mt. Ararat had one swimmer up against three or four for Messalonskee. Luckily, if there’s any sport where that’s possible to overcome, it’s swimming.

“It’s more on that individual and what they can do,” Butts said. “Swimming a team like Messalonskee for our guys is great because they’ve got great swimmers. So they can go out and even if someone’s a little bit faster than them, they can push them to do a best time. That’s what we’re hoping for.”

The Messalonskee boys took first place in seven individual races on the night and won all three relay events. In both the 200 and 400 freestyle relays, Mt. Ararat came within three seconds for second place.

“Messalonskee is a strong team,” Butts said. “Especially girls and boys, they’ve got a lot of numbers — a lot of really good, quality swimmers. They’re a great competition.”

In boys diving, Noah Brillant beat out Seth White and Finn Jacobs of Brunswick for first place.

Girls

On the girls side, coach Tracy Doviak has much more to work with. With a larger group of swimmers, the Eagles won multiple races and stuck with Messalonskee to the end, ultimately falling, 96-74.

Leading the way was Madigan Saunders, who put her freestyle stroke on display and won both the 50 and 100 races by over six seconds combined.

“I thought we did pretty well,” Doviak said. “We had some strong swims for everybody. People were either swimming their best times or a little bit better. In general, in the middle of the season it’s tough because guys are tired, I thought we performed really well.”

“I think we swam our hardest all the way through,” Mt. Ararat swimmer Laura Secone said. “Messalonskee came out strong and I think we matched that perfectly. We got some best times, PRed (personal record) a lot, put some points on the board.”

Secone took second in both the 200 and 500 freestyle races and was also part of the second-place 200 freestyle relay team that finished a second behind Messalonskee. Teammate Madelin Svetin placed second in the 100 butterfly (1:14.90), fourth in the 100 backstroke (1:19.51) and was also in the 200 medley relay team that took second.

“I think we’re doing really good this season,” Svetin said. “I think we have a lot of really good freshmen and Coach Butts is working us pretty hard during practice to get ready for the meets.”

While some of those freshmen are more athletes than swimmers, Doviak said that another group is starting at a more advanced level. That’s not something she’s seen often and it makes for a promising future.

Mt. Ararat will only be getting better in the coming years.

“We’re getting a little bit more depth on our team this year, which is great,” Doviak said. “Especially young depth. So, looking forward to next year and the year after, just starting to build a really strong team. Couldn’t be happier with the performance.”

“We have some strong underclassmen coming up, which will benefit our program a lot,” Secone said. “We’re probably going to progress more as the season goes on. We’ve had a lot of strong performances and we have a lot more to go.”