Lehigh travels to Penn State for final dual meet of season
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Men's Swimming & Diving
Posted: 02/03/2012
BETHLEHEM, Pa. – The Lehigh swimming and diving teams will travel to Penn State this weekend as they attempt to down the Nittany Lions in their last dual meet of the season. The meet will serve as a final tune up for both the Lehigh men and women before the Patriot League Championships February 16-18 at Navy.
The men look to get back into the win column, having dropped their last three contests after jumping out to a 7-0 start this season, while the women attempt to build on a victory at Drexel last weekend.
The Mountain Hawk men (7-3, 3-2 PL) received strong individual performances last week from senior Chris Toth and a pair of freshmen, Danny Bennett and Jake Greene, who took the top three spots in the 1000 free against Drexel. The freshmen duo of Bennett and Greene also took first and second in the 500 free, while sophomore Demetri Karedis was first to the wall in the 50 free before anchoring the 400 free relay team of junior Frank Cuzzola, sophomore Chris Hoke and senior Kevin Shoemaker that also took the top spot.
Senior diver Connor Styles is set to lead the men on the boards. Styles grabbed second place in both the 1 and 3 meter events at Drexel, and captured first place in both events in the previous meet against Bucknell on January 21.
The Lehigh women (4-5, 2-3 PL) look for freshman Alissa Leung and junior Emily DiDonato to continue their strong performances in the pool, as each brought home a pair of first place finishes last week at Drexel.
Leung continued her dominance of the backstroke events by winning both the 100 and 200 yard contests. Leung has won at least two individual events in eight of nine meets this season. DiDonato led the Brown and White in top three sweeps of the 100 and 200 yard breaststroke events.
The Penn State men (2-6, 0-4 Big Ten) look to rebound from a tough double dual meet loss to conference opponents No. 9 Ohio State and No. 4 Michigan last week. The women (4-3, 0-1 Big Ten) are coming off back to back wins, convincingly taking down Navy and Arkansas before beating Villanova last week. The Lady Lions are ranked 20th nationally and will provide a tough test for the Mountain Hawks. The Penn State men will host Buffalo on Friday before both squads welcome the Mountain Hawks Saturday.
The meet is set for 1 p.m. Saturday in McCoy Natatorium. Following Saturday’s meet Lehigh will return to preparations for the Patriot League Championships, beginning February 16 at Lejeune Hall in Annapolis, Md.
Story written by Gordon Stevenson '12