Members of the Bainbridge High boys swimming and diving team hoist the Washington State 3A Swim & Dive Championship Trophy over their heads after the Spartans won their second-in-a-row state title Saturday at the King County Aquatic Center in Federal Way.

Mercer Island was poised to take the team title, as MI had been winning in total points with just two races left in the state championships.

But after four Spartan swimmers placed in the finals for the 100-yard breastroke (Kevin Houseman, first; Aidan Wagner, fifth; Maxwell Eyrich, sixth; Carter Hall, seventh) — Bainbridge moved in front of Mercer Island by 17 points, 357-340 with one race left to swim.

The final race of the meet — the 400-yard freestyle relay — pitted the Spartans’ first-place finishers from Friday’s preliminaries against Mercer Island, the second-place winners in the preliminaries.

Mercer Island took an early lead in the race, but the Spartans rallied and won convincingly. The Spartan foursome shattered the record set last year (3:05.57) when Bainbridge won the 400 free title, and the relay team of Makai Ingalls, Andrew Witty, William Waite and Jude Wenker set a new meet record and a new state record of 3:05.29. It was also nearly a full second faster than the mark needed for an All-American time (3:06.28).

(Brian Kelly | Bainbridge Island Review)