ELSAH, IL – The Principia College men's swimming and diving team earned a hard fought win in their first meet of the season. They defeated Lincoln College 93-91 in a battle of evenly matched teams. The meet came down to the final relay event and everyone performed well to earn the team victory. They supported each other and the other team in showing a commitment to not having a single performance unsupported by a team member.
Lincoln took the lead early in the meet but Prin fought back little by little. Lincoln won in the 200 Medley relay to get out in front and then extended it with a win the 1000 Free. The Lynx extended it even further in the 200 Free despite a great swim by sophomore
Zacher Lewis (2:01.55). The men notched their first win in the 50 Free as senior
Josh Harmon went 22.27 for the win. Sophomore
Hunter Mehring followed that up with a win in the 200 IM (2:04.51) with a solid third place for freshman
Brett Huntley. Junior
Connor Walton made it three in a row with a win in the 1-meter diving event. Walton also earned his first NCAA qualifying score with a 288.10. Despite the wins, Lincoln's depth kept them ahead by 10 points at this point.
Harmon started the next section of swimming events for Prin with a strong win in the 100 Free (49.71). Lewis and Huntley then went 1-2 in the 100 Back (1:03.23, 1:08.82) to close the gap to 4 points. Lincoln expanded that lead in the 500 Free to 17 points heading into the 3-meter diving event.
Junior captain
Jesse Dehnert got the team back on the winning track with a win in the 3-meter event (289.65). That score gave Dehnert his first NCAA qualifying score for the year. Even with Walton earning a second place, the men were still down by 7 points heading into the final two events.
Mehring captured his second win of the meet in the 100 Breast (1:01.61) to reduce the lead to 5 points. It would all come down to the final relay. In the 200 Free relay Lewis, Huntley, Harmon and Mehring went a 1:33.85 to win the event and secure the men's team their first win of the season.
There was plenty of good performances but with plenty of room for improvement in the future.
The men will compete next at the Illinois College Quad meet on Saturday, Nov 8 in Jacksonville, IL where they will take on three other schools from the region.
