Gaffney McDonough of Morse celebrates his victory in the 50-yard freestyle race at the Class B boys swimming state championship at Bowdoin College in Brunswick on Tuesday. McDonough won the race with a time of 21.10 seconds, setting a meet record. Gregory Rec/Portland Press Herald

BRUNSWICK — When he was a freshman, Gaffney McDonough made a bold claim. He said the Morse boys swim team would soon be the best in the state. Not just one day in the future but specifically in 2025, when McDonough and three other “pretty solid” swimmers would be seniors.

“I have receipts of messages talking to Greely and Cape (Elizabeth) swimmers,” McDonough said. “I was like, ‘I think, maybe, potentially, we’ll win states in a couple years.’ And here we are. We won it. I’m thrilled. From top to bottom we had some great swims, and I’m just super proud of the whole team.”

The Shipbuilders maintained a comfortable lead throughout the Class B championship meet Tuesday at Bowdoin College, winning nine events and totaling 424.5 points, cruising over Greely (299.5), Ellsworth (283) and three-time defending champion Cape Elizabeth (271.5).

MDI (192.5), Belfast (138), Yarmouth (129) and Northern Penobscot (110) rounded out the eight scoring teams.

The Shipbuilders won their first boys state title since capturing Class A in 2006.

Morse’s core four of seniors — McDonough, David Mitchell, Anders Savage and Sawyer Wright — were pretty solid themselves. With the championship secured heading into the final race, they combined to win the 400-yard freestyle relay in a time of 3:13.91, breaking their own state record set 11 days earlier.

“Let’s go for it, why not?” Wright remembered thinking during the race. “It was really great to have that as my last one of my high school career.”

“KVACs, it’s our home pool, so we swim a lot faster at that meet, typically, and for some reason our taper hits a little better,” McDonough said. “Here, we always find it’s better for 100s, specifically. So we looked up, I didn’t even know we were going to be close to the state record again. I was like, ‘we’ll just get the meet record, get out.’ And we end up getting the state record, which I thought was pretty awesome.”

Alongside his anchor leg in the 400, Wright opened Morse’s meet-record 200 IM relay (1:36.84), and claimed individual titles in the 100 freestyle (48.04) and 200 freestyle (1:48.35).

Although he began the day queasy from nerves, McDonough ended it as the swimmer of the meet. He set a meet record in the 50 freestyle (21.10), set a personal best in the 100 butterfly (51.74) and contributed to both of Morse’s record-setting relays. The Shipbuilders crowded the 50 free podium as freshman Max Couture finished second in 22.87 and Savage tied for third with MDI junior Patrick Saltysiak in 22.93.

Saltysiak also defended his 100 backstroke title (54:07).

First-year head coach Spencer Hallowell, who was a senior when the Morse boys last won at states, said his biggest piece of advice was to stay composed.

“Sometimes you can get emotional and excited and do some weird things, but they kept their composure,” Hallowell said. “They took that advice to heart. The rest of it was just them swimming in the pool, doing their own thing.”

Other first-place finishes for Morse included the 200-yard freestyle relay (Brady Chubbuck, Cameron Griffee, Couture, Savage, 1:31.13), the 500 freestyle (Mitchell, 4:52.42) and the 1-meter dive (Fletcher McDonough, 373.3 points).

“We did well at the top and we did well in the middle, and that’s what it takes to get the whole championship,” Hallowell said.

Cape Elizabeth senior Graham Plourde retained his 200 IM (1:59.35) title, separating from Mitchell during the third leg.

“I knew that was going to be a good field, probably the fastest field in years, and I know that my weakness is in the backstroke,” Plourde said. “So I kind of know that as long as I stay kind of close to them through that point, I’m going to be able to come back in the breaststroke. That’s what I did.”

Greely junior Isaac Barr almost won the 100 breaststroke, but Plourde caught up during the second split and met Barr at the touchpad. They tied with a time of 59.05 seconds, a week after finishing a hundredth of a second apart in the SMAA championships.