Mountain Hawks open season at Drexel Relays

Saturday, October 22

Philadelphia, Pa.

02:00 PM

Lehigh University

Drexel Relays

10/22/2005 12:00:00 AM | Men's Swimming and Diving, Swimming and Diving, Women's Swimming and Diving

PHILADELPHIA – Lehigh opened the 2005-06 swimming and diving season Saturday afternoon with a strong showing at the Drexel Relays. The Mountain Hawks and Drexel took part in the un-scored meet which featured almost 20 relay events and four diving events. Lehigh won twelve of the events, five on the men’s side and seven on the women’s side.

“Things went very well for the first meet,” said head coach Rob Herb. “Obviously, we’re only about four weeks into the season, so there’s still a lot to work on, but the team went out and did well today.”

For the men, several mainstays had solid days in the pool. Senior Grant Flothmeier was on three winning relay teams; the 300 yard butterfly, 300 yard breaststroke and 400 yard IM relay. Fellow captain Jason O’Koren joined Flothmeier on two of those teams, while junior Tom Gilbert and sophomore Jon Kearney guided Lehigh to a win in the 300 yard backstroke relay. Kearney also teamed with Sean Herman, Dan Buschmann and promising Freshman Dan Johnson to win the 800 yard freestyle relay.

The Lehigh women also swam well on the day. Betsy Balaguer, Linda Hendrixson, Kelsey Hunter and Ali Valasek won the 800 free relay. Each member of that foursome was part of multiple event winning teams on the afternoon, as were Julie Mitchell and Jenni Orellana.

Lehigh will swim in its first scored meet of the season on Saturday, October 29 as the Mountain Hawks will travel to West Chester. That meet will get underway at 1:00 pm.