LEWISTON – Records are made to be broken?

Perhaps, but if you’re waiting for a Lewiston High School boys’ swimming standard to subside, it might require going through four presidential administrations, three career changes and six car payments.

Eleven events are timed for posterity and celebrated in the Blue Devils’ record book. Six of those best times were established either in 1987 or ’88. Only two changed hands this decade.

Maybe that conveys the sense of accomplishment that will forever link seniors David Tirabassi and Derek Morris, junior Kurtis Stocker and sophomore Colby Miles after their plunge into history Friday night.

In a road meet against Cony at Augusta YMCA, Lewiston’s 200-yard freestyle relay quartet trimmed two seconds off its previous best time and clocked in at 1:38.36. With that, the Devils’ emerging foursome eclipsed the mark of Brandon Gardner, Kyle Chapman, Brant McCarthy and Sean Ford – set in 2001, and the second-newest boys’ record in the LHS ledger – by more than half a second.

“We were off by .15 seconds,” Tirabassi said of last winter’s dogged pursuit of the record along with Morris and now-graduated Patrick Roy and Tucker Adams. “(We haven’t been) as close as we were last year.”

In fact, Lewiston’s fastest previous time in the 200 free was established by a different lineup. With Nate Chaloux stepping in for Miles, the Blue Devils hit the wire at 1:40.13 against Mt. Ararat on Dec. 16.

“Sometimes the coach (Jessica Aube) will split us up,” said Miles, a sophomore.

Lewiston’s reloaded relay outfit showed signs of its record-setting potential one week ago in a home meet with Winslow. Tirabassi, Morris, Miles and Stocker hooked up to win all three of their events, also logging victories in the 400 freestyle relay and 200 medley relay.

Still, there were no signs that the Devils would shave a two-Mississippi off their collective best in only seven days.

Morris suspected that if his team threatened the record, it would happen in February’s state meet at Bowdoin College, where there are fewer distractions than in a dual or triangular competition.

“You always get better in the championship meets,” said Morris, a co-captain. “During the normal meets we always swim other events, so we’re tired. When we get to states, that’s all we’re swimming, so we’ll have more energy.”

“It’s really tough because people are swimming 500s right before it. We’re swimming a little bit tired,” Stocker noted. “It’s probably two-thirds of the way through a (regular) meet.”

Morris and Tirabassi shared the podium with Roy and Adams as third-place finishers in the consolation final at last year’s Class A championship, where they missed out on the school record by a fraction. Tirabassi, Morris, Stocker and Roy won the 400 free relay at the same meet, establishing them as the No. 9 team in the state.

Friday’s breakthrough vaulted the 200 freestyle team onto the charts with a bullet as the sixth-fastest time in Maine this season. They rank 11th in the other two relay events, as well.

“Relays are worth more points (than individual events), so I like that,” Tirabassi said.

There’s also a camaraderie that surpasses the typical team bond in what is already a close-knit sport.

Consider one of the lasting images from the Beijing Olympics, that of Michael Phelps bellowing into the water, then exulting at poolside as Jason Lezak rallied to deliver a U.S. victory by one-hundredth of a second.

“I just like relays in general,” Miles said. “You’re cheering for three other guys in the water, and when you’re swimming you have three other guys screaming at you. ‘Go faster! Go faster!’ “

Having a top-notch relay team, combined with its overall numbers, makes Lewiston an early favorite to defend its Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference title on Feb. 7 in Bath. The Blue Devils already have defeated longtime KVAC menace Morse in the regular season for the second straight year.

Miles and Stocker aren’t the only new additions to Tirabassi and Morris’ world. The seniors are working with their third different coach in four years. Aube succeeds Becky Angelides and Dave Bright.

Regardless of how the final weeks unfold, the new-look Devils know they’ll have the privilege of applying some wet ink to their wall of fame at Lewiston YWCA.

“The people we lost last year were pretty good,” Morris said, “but we knew we had good people coming up.”

Good enough to be the measuring stick for the next wave of up-and-comers. And who knows? At the rate such records typically tumble, Tirabassi, Morris, Stocker and Miles’ 15 minutes of fame could persist for 20 years.