Men's Swimmers Capture Invite
Dec 7, 2008LANCASTER, Pa. - Franklin & Marshall's men's swimmers held a tenuous lead on Kutztown entering the third and final session of the 2008 Franklin & Marshall Invitational. By the end of the morning's six races, the Diplomats had seized control of the meet, and in the process, captured their own invitational for the first time in the meet's 11-year history. Kutztown took second.
"Our men really have not b roken training and several of the top competitors in this meet were rested and shaved," said F&M Coach, Bob Rueppel. "This is an outstanding indicator of how we will perform at our conference championships"
The Diplomats entered Sunday's session with a 25.5 point lead on Kutztown, and wasted little time in widening the gap, taking first place in the first half of the day's races, as well as the fifth race.
F&M found first place points in the 200-yard backstroke in which Matt Jaffee edged out Kutztown's Jack Crellin. Jaffee touched first at 1:55.18, .26 seconds ahead of Crellin. The Dips' David Fell contributed third place points, while Greg Mackinnon and Conor Finnegan added sixth and seventh place points, respectively. The bevy of points doubled the Diplomats lead.
Peter Fishler kept the momentum building winning the second race of the morning, the 100-yard freestyle. His 47.26 was the only time registered below the 48-second mark. Matt Wood threw in fourth place points, while J.P. Kelley scored tenth place points to keep the lead at 50 points.
Tom Grabiak extended the string of Diplomats wins to three, securing the 20 first place points in the 200-yard breaststroke. His 2:10.42 gave him nearly four seconds on Rowan's Jake Taylor. Three other F&M swimmers, Travis Catania, Scott Rownd and Carey O'Donnell, finished in the points for F&M.
Matt Woods, Grabiak, Jaffee and Fishler helped extend the F&M lead to 60 points entering the invite's final event. The F&M foursome swam a 3:12.40 to edge out Kutztown's entry at 3:13.79.
Mason Wash and Elliot Scymanski took third and fourth place in the 200-yard butterfly, respectively. Wash touched at 2:00.03, while Scymanski logged a 2:00.98. Kutztown managed second place points in the race on the strength of John Pandish's 1:59.59, while Rowan's Kevin Wallace took first at 1:58.42.
The Diplomats are idle through the holidays. F&M returns to the pool on January 24th at Ursinus.
