Men's Swimming & Diving celebrates Senior Night, wins Golden Kickboard with 132-99 victory over Baldwin Wallace

By Tim Glon

ADA — The Ohio Northern men's swimming & diving team celebrated Senior Night in style and captured the Golden Kickboard for the ninth consecutive season with a 132-99 victory over Baldwin Wallace at the ONU Sports Center Natatorium.

The Polar Bears improve to 5-3 overall and are 2-2 in Ohio Athletic Conference action, while the Yellow Jackets fall to 4-6, 0-3.

ONU is now 11-2 all-time in the Godlen Kickboard series, which awards the Golden Kickboard trophy annually to the ONU-BW winner.

The victory was also the 100th career coaching victory for Ohio Northern's 13-year head coach Peggy Ewald, who is now 100-40 in dual meets, a winning percentage of .714.

Senior John Raker (Lebanon/Lakota West) and Eric Chen (Mason) each won one individual race and were on a winning relay team to lead ONU.

Raker won the 200 free in 1:51.61 and Chen won the 50 free in :22.05.

"Senior Night is always special," ONU head coach Peggy Ewald said. "This one was especially so with a large group of leaders."

Junior Thomas Golba (Kettering/Alter) won the 100 free in :50.08.

Junior Ian Simpson (Strongsville) won the 100 back in :55.98.

Freshman Nolan Huey (Fort Collins, Colo./Fossil Ridge) won the 1650 free in 17:09.29.

Northern began the meet by winning the 200 medley relay, as Simpson, Golba, Raker and senior Logan Pfeifer (Bucyrus/Colonel Crawford) finished in 1:40.01.

ONU wrapped up the meet by winning the 200 free relay as Chen, sophomore Gabe Rastatter (Springfield/Kenton Ridge), sophomore Justin Chapman (Springboro) and Pfeifer finished in 1:28.91.

"This was a good meet to end the OAC dual season on," Ewald said. "We were recovered from our travels and got to enjoy racing with BW. A friendly competitive meet always brings out some of life's lessons in addition to testing the pool lessons. We are back racing on Saturday and will look forward to the last regular season meet."

The Polar Bears will wrap up their regular season on Saturday with a 1 pm tri-meet at Case Western Reserve with Hillsdale (Mich.)