The 2007-2008 swimming and diving season got underway over the weekend with Wabash finishing third out of nine teams at the annual North Coast Athletic Conference Relays.
The Little Giants posted third place finishes in two events. The first came from the 200-yard butterfly relay team of Robert Fozkos, Daniel Michael, Adam Petro, and Eric Vaughan. The four Little Giants swimmer took third place with a time of 1:35.11. Jordon Blackwell, Blaine Cooper-Surma, Michael, and Nick Rockefeller took third place in the 200-yard freestyle relay with a time of 1:26.96, less than two seconds off the winning time of 1:25.46 posted by Kenyon.
The 200-yard medley relay teams started the meet with a fourth-place finish. The quartet of Zach Phillips, Kyle O’Keefe, Michael, and Cooper-Surma finished the race with a time of 1:38.97. The Little Giants added another fourth in the 200 backstroke relay. Phillips, Petro, Peter Hewitt, and Vaughan completed the race in 1:40:48, trailing only Kenyon and Denison.
The 500-yard crescendo relay team of Cooper-Surma, Blackwell, Chad Woods, and Elijah Sanders also took fourth place (4:18.11).
Wabash divers combined for seconds on both the one- and three-meter boards. No individual totals were available.
The Little Giants scored 108 points, trailing Kenyon in first with 148 points and Denison in second with a 134. Wooster (88), Wittenberg (68), Hiram (64), Ohio Wesleyan (54), Allegheny (38), and Oberlin (34) rounded out the team scoring.
Wabash returns to the pool this weekend with two dual meets. The Little Giants travel to Lexington, Kentucky Friday night to swim against Transylvania University. Wabash opens the home portion of its season Saturday at 1 p.m. with a dual meet against Carthage College.
The Saturday meet has been named one of SwimmingWorldMagazine.com’s Dual Meets of the Week. The national magazine has picked 15 meets in the first half of the swimming and diving season that highlight competition between two top programs. Teams include in the Dual Meet of the Week program this year include Florida, Indiana, Virginia, Tennessee, and Michigan.