#30 Men's Swimming & Diving clinches share of 10th consecutive OAC Regular Season title with 174-125 victory over Mount Union

January 16, 2016

By Tim Glon

ADA — No. 30-ranked Ohio Northern clinched at least a share of the Ohio Athletic Conference Men's Swimming & Diving Regular Season title with a 174-125 victory over Mount Union in a battle of league unbeatens Saturday afternoon at the ONU Sports Center Natatorium.

The Polar Bears improve to 6-1 overall and are 3-0 in OAC action, while the Purple Raiders fall to 6-2, 2-1.

Ohio Northern has now won or shared 10 consecutive OAC Regular Season titles and extends its OAC regular season winning streak to an impressive 33 meets, dating to 2007-08.

Junior Eric Chen and sophomore Trevor Keriazes each won two swimming events and sophomore Braden Kuhn swept the 1- and 3-meter diving events to lead ONU.

"We are continuing to challenge where our best events can be for a few of the swimmers," ONU head coach Peggy Ewald said. "As we mix up the line up, we're finding some new ground to explore. We've had a few injuries and such over the past couple of weeks that required some of the mix up of events. All in all, going back to back meets gave a good opportunity for us to race decently while tired. We still have much to learn over the last final weeks of the regular season. The team is responding to that challenge."

Ohio Northern won 10 of the 16 events to post the victory.

Chen won the 100-yard free in :48.02 and won the 200 free in 1:45.33.

Keriazes swept the breast events, winning the 100 breast in :58.75 and the 200 in 2:14.15.

Kuhn won the 1-meter diving with 216.95 points and the 3-meter diving with 194.20 points.

Sophomore Thomas Golba won the 50 free in :22.08 and freshman Pete He won the 500 free in 4:56.08.

Northern swept the relays to start and end the meet.

Sophomore Ian Simpson, Keriazes, He and Golba won the 200 medley relay in 1:36.70 to start the meet and junior Logan Pfeifer, junior John Raker, Chen and He ended the meet by winning the 800 free relay in 7:18.01.

The Polar Bears will compete again twice next weekend, swimming at Baldwin Wallace on Friday and at home with No. 14-ranked Case Western Reserve on Saturday.