The decorated seniors of Newport’s boys swim and dive team helped add more hardware to their school’s trophy case before closing the book on their prep careers.

Newport took home the 4A state championship for the third year in row Saturday at King County Aquatic Center in Federal Way. The Knights won with a team score of 234, beating second-place Curtis (176) and third-place Issaquah (174). Newport swim coach Eric Bartleson said it was a memorable end, especially for the graduating class that contributed to the three-year title reign.

“It’s been kind of a special senior class,” Bartleson said. “The guys came in as freshman and I knew I had a bunch of special guys on the team. Their freshmen year they did well and they kind of broke out their sophomore year and said, ‘Hey let’s see if we can do this all the way through.’

“It’ll be tough next year, but it’s been a great trip with this group of seniors, and all the classes that were up before them and behind them.”

The Knights had championship winners in three events, with senior Dave Makhervaks winning titles in the 100 free (46.7) and 100 back (50.40). The group of Will Dittig, Frank Zhang, Jay Zhang and Makhervaks won the 200 medley relay at 1:35.62.

Dittig was third in the 100 back (52.05) and fifth in the 100 free (47.76). William Zhou placed sixth in the 100 fly (52.98) and seventh in the 200 IM (1:58.22), and Jay Zhang was sixth in the 50 free (21.96) Newport’s team of Jay Zhang, Michael Bondarenko, Zhou and Makhervaks were third in the 400 relay at 3:13.98. The Knights placed sixth in the 200 free relay with a time of 1:29.75.

Bartleson said in winning their third title, the Knights made a point of taking care of business during the preliminaries the day before the championship finals. His swimmers figured if they did well at prelims, the rest would take care of itself.

“It’s going to be tough to replace that group,” Bartleson said, “but there are some nice memories with three years worth of state titles.”