A week after placing second at the KingCo conference championships, the Mercer Island boys swim and dive team finished third overall at the 3A Sea-King district championships Saturday at Mary Wayte Pool.

Bellevue won the district trophy for the second year in a row, registering a team score of 273. Bainbridge was second at 263 and the Islanders next with a score of 213.

Though making the top three, the third-place finish did not sit well with the Mercer Island swimmers, who were hoping for a stronger showing.

“We didn’t swim horribly, but we’re not satisfied with our performance today,” Mercer Island coach Chris Conroy said. “We feel that we’re competitive with the two teams that beat us, and we got third, so that of course is disappointing. But then we also talked about how our objective as a team this season is performing as well as we can at state, and that’s what’s most important. If it means getting third at districts but performing better at state, that’s fine. That’s more important.”

Bellevue opened Saturday’s meet with a record-breaking win in the 200 medley relay. The team of A.J. Rossman, Thomas Eggenberger, Andrew Lee and Zack Rossman set a new district record with a winning time of 1:37.23, three-hundredths of a second better than the previous record, also set by the Wolverines, in 2014.

Bellevue took two of the three relay events, also winning the 400 free relay (3:12.32). Bellevue’s 200 free relay team was disqualified during preliminaries the day before and thus out of Saturday’s race.

Mercer Island placed third in the 200 medley relay, were runners-up to Bainbridge in the 200 free relay and placed third in the 400 free relay. In the latter two relay events, the Islanders finished behind the Spartans by less than a second.

Ben Dixon placed second in the diving event with a score of 415.65, behind O’Dea High School’s Casey Benson (446.1). Ben Gore was second in the 100 fly (52.34) behind Interlake’s Jeffrey Li (51.98). Gore also placed sixth in the 200 free (1:46.88).

James Richardson was fourth in the 100 fly (54.27) and sixth in the 100 back (55.09). The Islanders went 4-5-6 in 500 free, with Jake Headrick fourth (4:55.27), Killian Riley fifth (4:56.65) and Oliver Hoff sixth (5:00.73). Hoff also placed fifth in the 200 free (1:46.7).

Conner Vacca was sixth in the 50 free (22.73) and Kyle Bailey was sixth in the 200 IM (2:03.39).

Conroy said a big theme among the Islanders after the district meet was to flush away their disappointment and only take anything technical from the race forward. If Saturday’s performances from Bellevue and Bainbridge serve as indicators, the Islanders will need their best to make good on their goal for showing well at the state meet next weekend.

“They both have really deep teams,” Conroy said of Saturday’s top two finishing teams. “Bellevue has an incredibly deep team. Bainbridge has a number of very strong freshmen, they have three strong relays and quite a bit of depth as well. They’re both very strong opponents, it’s going to be a slugfest at state.”