Doing the split

Swimmen crush Spartans; loss to Purdue ends streak

Road wins are not easy.

One win was all the Penn State men's swimming and diving teams could muster from their two road meet excursion this past weekend.

The Nittany Lions opened their Big Ten season against Michigan State on Saturday and won in convincing fashion, 136-104. The Lions jumped out quick -- they won five of the first six events -- and the Spartans could never catch up.

Individual performances marked the Lions' success throughout the meet. Freshman Steve Hodgins won the 1000-yard freestyle in nine minutes and 25 seconds and Braedan Quigley, a State College native, won the 200-yard individual medley in 1:54. Both performances by Hodgins and Quigley were career bests.

Other winners of individual events were Holden Comeau in the 200-yard freestyle, Brian Hostetler in the 50-yard freestyle and Alvaro Velez in the 200-yard butterfly.

The Lions dominated the Spartans while their second opponent, Purdue, waited for them in Indiana.

"We wanted to get through Michigan State without burning ourselves out," Lion coach Peter Brown said.

They didn't burn out, but their fire certainly dropped a couple degrees.

The Lions' second meet of the trip was not as successful as their first. They lost to Purdue 129-114 in the final event of the afternoon.

The contest marked the first loss of the season for Penn State. Even though Purdue gave the Lions the only blemish on their record, the team was not discouraged.

"We were all happy with our performance," sophomore Paul Monyok said. "We gave Purdue more than they expected."

The overall consensus of the Lions was that they could have won if Purdue came to Penn State to swim.

"If we swam them at home, I think things would have been different," Brown said.

Swimmers went even further and claimed that having two meets in two days took a bigger toll than the foreign atmosphere of the road.

"We would have beaten Purdue if we didn't have back-to-back meets," Monyok said.

Even though the Lions lost and saw their undefeated record fall on the road trip (5-1, 1-1 Big Ten), there were many positives.

Penn State divers are atop the list of positives, as they swept the 1-meter and 3-meter competitions at both meets. This type of performance is not unusual for Lion divers -- they have been virtually unbeatable all season.

"We've got a lot of talent and our coach is wonderful," sophomore Chris Alderman said.

The "wonderful" diving coach is Craig Brown, who is in his 12th season as diving coach for the Lions and was named Big Ten Diving Coach of the Year in 1994.

Another positive of the road was trip was the pride the Lions took in themselves. Even though they lost a close meet on the road, their heads were not drooping.

"I was really proud to be part of the team this weekend," sophomore Gavin Carscallen said.

The men's swimming and diving teams can rest up for about two weeks until they face Northwestern on Jan. 31.

Unfortunately for the Lions, it's another road meet.