Grabiak Leads F&M to First Place Through Day One

Session 1 Results | Session 2 Results

LANCASTER, Pa. -- Tom Grabiak won a pair of races and contributed legs in a pair of winning relays on the first day of the 2008 Franklin & Marshall Invitational. His effort leaves the Diplomats in first place amongst the eight competing teams.

Grabiak won the 200-yard individual medley with a 1:58.27, giving him .66 seconds on Kutztown's John Pandish. Five F&M swimmers finished in the points with the Diplomats sweeping fourth through seventh place and landing a swimmer in tenth.

Grabiak swam a 58.58 in the 100-yard breaststroke to edge out Rowan's Jake Taylor late in the evening session.

On the relay end, Grabiak joined up with Matt Jaffee, Peter Fishler and Matt Woods for first place in the morning session's final race, the 400-yard medley relay and the first race of the evening session, the 200-yard medley relay. The Diplomats held nearly four seconds in the Rowan entry in the 400 to go into the break with a 45.5 point lead on the field. They extended the lead with a 2.17 second win in the 200 after posting a 1:37.32.

Kutztown cut a huge chunk out of F&M's lead collecting 57 points in the 400-yard individual medley. The Golden Bears took first second and fourth place in the race. A race later, F&M's lead was down to 1.5 points, but a solid showing in the 200-yard freestyle gave F&M a cushion.

Peter Fishler contributed 20 points, winning the 200-free in 1:45.01, .21 seconds ahead of Rowan's Bill Malone. The Diplomats got an additional 11 points when J.P. Kelly took eighth place in the same race before Grabiak's effort in the 100-yard breaststroke gave the Diplomats a 6.5-point cushion.

F&M boosted the lead to 35.5 points with a sweep of second through fifth place in the night's final individual race, the 100-yard backstroke. Kutztown's Jack Crellin and Matt Moates served as bookends around Jaffee, David Fell, Woods, and Finnegan. Crellin touched at 53.24 for first place, just ahead of Jaffee at 53.58.

Tight races were the theme of the first day on the men's side. The first race of the morning was decided by .03 seconds when Rowan's 200-yard free relay team of Josh Spivey, Ryan McNally, Stephen Tucker and Bill Malone posted a 1:27.44 to squeak out the win over F&M's quartet of Woods, J.P. Kelly, Kalin Pavlov and Fishler.

Fishler and Woods split the third and fourth place point in the 50-yard freestyle. Each swam a 21.87, finishing .01 seconds off of the second place pace and .30 seconds off of the first place pace set by Marymount's Greg Murtha.

The Diplomats return to the pool on Sunday morning for the third and final session of the F&M Invitational.