Men's Swimming & Diving holds off Wilmington 114-91 in exciting OAC battle
By Tim Glon
ADA — The Ohio Northern men's swimming & diving team held off a tough Wilmington challenge 114-91 Friday night at the ONU Sports Center.
The Polar Bears improve to 2-0 overall and are 2-0 in Ohio Athletic Conference action, while the Quakers fall to 1-1, 1-1.
Northern won only three of the nine swimming events, but captured both relays and used its depth to run its OAC regular season winning streak to 28 matches.
Clinging to an 87-82 lead, sophomore John Raker won the 100 breast in 1:01.96, leading a 1-2-4-5 ONU finish in the final individual race of the night to increase the lead to 103-85.
Northern then won the 200 free relay as sophomore Eric Chen rallied in the final leg for the victory to close out the meet.
ONU opened the meet by winning the 200 medley relay as freshmen Gabe Dauch and Trevor Keriazes and sophomores Jeremy Preston and Logan Pfeifer touched first in 1:37.90 to stake ONU to a 13-4 lead.
WC won the next two events to claw within 28-27, but Chen won the 50 free in :22.04, Keriazes won the 200 I.M. in 2:01.23 and Preston won the 100 fly in :52.98 to extend the lead to 66-46.
Again the Quakers rallied and won the next three events to pull within 87-82 with just two events remaining.
But Raker, senior Jason Luthman, freshman Thomas Golba and freshman Conor Cassara gave ONU a 16-3 advantage in the 100 breast to put the meet out of reach.
The Polar Bears will return to action Saturday morning at 10:30 am at defending national champion Kenyon.
