In its fifth consecutive victory, the men's swimming and diving team conquered the LaSalle Explorers, 123-107, Saturday at McCoy Natatorium.

Although the margin was only 16 points, the difference was actually much more. Knowing his team needed only 122 points to win the meet, Coach Peter Brown decided to swim the final four events in exhibition. Penn State's points did not count, but the times were official and could be used to qualify swimmers for Easterns.

"There's no use racking up points, because some day it will come back to haunt you," Brown said. "Besides, we have some guys shaved and they don't."

"We knew we would beat them big and it isn't going to make us feel any better to really crush them," sophomore Jack Moss said.

Nick Boyce, Bill Matz, Brent Matheson and Bill Hurst started the meet on a positive stroke by winning the 400-meter medley relay in 3:28.25. Coming in a close second in 3:29.93 was the team of Walt Sopp, John McKeehen, Dave Rafferty and Craig Dies.

Mike Replogle led a sweep of the 200 freestyle in 1:43.09, followed by Phil Meyer (1:44.37) and junior Eric Becher (1:44.83).

In the 50 freestyle, senior Brian Wentzel touched the wall in 20.88, only a fraction off Rafferty's record of 20.51 set in 1987. Wentzel was challenged by Mike Miklus and Moss who finished second and third, respectively.

Wentzel (46.30) also led Moss (47.07) and Hurst (47.61) in a sweep of the 100 freestyle.

Sophomore Bruce Kimble placed second in the 200 individual medley (1:55.19) and was followed by junior Drew Van Winkle in 1:56.39.

"We are all pretty well rested and a lot of the guys shaved," Van Winkle said. "We should now have an idea of how much faster we are going to get and how we should prepare for the rest of the season."

Raffery and Jim Wolfle handled the 200 butterfly event with ease as they were the first ones to reach the wall in the times of 1:50.74 and 1:53.64, respectively.

In diving action, Mike Westwood won the one-meter event with a score of 271.20 and Steve Zamborsky placed second with 266.70. Joe Marsh scored a fifth-place berth for Penn State with 226.20. In exhibition on the three-meter board, Zamborsky finished with 296.17 points, followed by D.J. Hill (281.85) and Westwood (273.82).

Boyce (1:53.20) and Randy Nixon (1:56.66) combined in the 200 backstroke to place first and second. Senior Bruce Byrne splashed into fourth place in 1:58.17.

LaSalle's Jeff Gershe and Penn State's Phil Meyer had a photo finish at the wall in the 500 freestyle, which ended with Meyer taking the race in 4:34.56. Gershe's time was 4:34.59.

Meyer, a freshman from Bernardsville, N.J., broke the Nittany Lion unshaved record in the event. The record was held by Rafferty in 4:35.07 and was set last year at LaSalle.

"I usually swim the 1,000 freestyle, but I got a break against LaSalle yesterday and swam my fastest unshaved time," Meyer said, adding that he is looking forward to the meet with West Virginia and St. Bonaventure.

"Phil is a good swimmer. Both of our times should drop and we should end up in the top eight at Easterns," Gershe said.

The meet ended with a pool record falling in the 400 freestyle relay. The record (3:02.04) was broken by Miklus, Rafferty, Wentzel and Sopp in 3:01.78.

"We are going to use our best line-up from here on out to establish more confidence in anticipation of Easterns," Brown said. "The training is going to be very individualized from here on out. The more individual the better."