Brian Manley swims the butterfly portion of the 200 medley relay for Orchard Park against Jamestown on Friday afternoon. Orchard Park came away with a 122-62 victory. Photo by John NormilePurchase color photos at www.BeeNews.com The Orchard Park Quakers were rolling through the 2011-12 regular season before suffering a rare defeat on Jan. 17 at Williamsville North. Some wondered how Orchard Park would deal with the adversity and respond after suffering a fate they hadn’t been used to.

That concern continued after Orchard Park lost its second meet in a row on Jan. 20, dropping a 94-91 decision to first-place Clarence. Since then, however, the Quakers have righted the ship and are looking to reach peak performance as the ECIC AA Championships get underway this weekend at Sweet Home High School.

Orchard Park picked up some momentum by beating Jamestown and Hamburg to close out the regular season. The Quakers had little trouble against Jamestown on Friday in earning a 122-62 victory. They followed that up with a trip to Hamburg on Tuesday and scored a victory over the Bulldogs.

The Quakers are now getting ready for ECICs, where they are ranked fourth in the 200 yard medley relay, fifth in the 200 yard freestyle relay and third in the 400 yard freestyle relay. They also feature a couple of top-ranked swimmers in Andy Duszynski and Spencer Bray.

Duszynski is ranked first overall in both the 100 and 200 yard freestyle. Duszynski has posted a Class AA-best time of 48.36 in the 100 and a 1:46.78 in the 200. Bray, meanwhile, is first in the 200 yard IM at 2:01.08. He is also ranked third in the 100 yard backstroke.

Orchard Park head coach Art Aungst expects Duszynski and Bray to lead the Quakers to the top against the 13 other schools in the meet.

“We’ll be in the mix,” Aungst said. “It will be a close meet. Williamsville North, Clarence and Williamsville East will all be there. We hope to swim well as a team. We’re still trying to get people together on the relays.”

Other swimmers who will compete this weekend for Orchard Park are Zach Healy (200 free, 500 free), Jackson Ogin (200 free, 100 butterfly), Richard Young (200 free, 100 free), Alexander Phillips (200 free, 100 free), Liam Hoover (200 IM, 100 butterfly), Nolan McArdle (200 IM, 100 back), Kyle Myers (200 IM, 500 free), John Wardner (200 IM, 100 breast), Ben Frost (200 IM, 500 free), Steve Czuczman (50 free, 100 free), Gordon Holden (50 free), Wyatt Kluckhohn (50 free, 100 free), Matt Holder (50 free, 100 free), Brian Manley (100 butterfly, 100 breast), Mark Simson (100 free), Jesse Field (100 free, 100 back), Richard Ruh (100 free, 100 back), Alex Ciolek (100 back), Connor Maloney (100 breast) and Caylor Mangino (100 breast).

Orchard Park’s divers, Holden and Jake Ortiz, will also compete after turning in their two best scores against Hamburg on Tuesday.

Though the Quakers have been stunned by their two losses, Aungst has been happy with the way they have swam. That includes the two defeats to Clarence and Williamsville North. Aungst knows it will be tough sledding to emerge victorious at the Class AA and Section VI meets, but he feels good about what his swimmers have been able to do this season.

“We lost two meets, but in both of them we swam well,” Aungst said. “We did about as well as we could. There was a lot of subjectivity there and we could have been better against Clarence, but those teams swam better than us. I’m just proud to be associated with these guys. They are a great bunch of guys. They swim hard and I’ve been proud of them.” email: mmigliore@beenews.com