GRANTHAM, Pa. - The Messiah men's swimming team opened the 2021-22 season on Saturday with a pair of victories over Hood (136-64) and King's (119-78). The Falcons fell in their dual with Widener by a 120-83 final, but overall, it was a quality day for the Falcons in their first showing of the season.
Swimming in their home pool in the Fredricksen Natatorium, the Falcons claimed three individual victories along with a first-place finish in the 200 Medley Relay (1:41.43).
PJ Cronauer won both the 1000 Free (10:41.63) and the 500 Free (5:08.74) while
Isaac McCabe got to the wall first in the 200 IM (2:05.24). In total the Falcons had seven individual top-three finishes.
Messiah will be back in action next Saturday when they travel to Arcadia to take on the Knights in a dual that is slated to begin at 12:00 p.m.
The Falcons started the season with a victory in their first event of the year, the 200 Medley Relay. The team of
Johnathon Lacayo,
Isaac McCabe,
Andrew Roberti, and
Mark Lukens out touched the Widener Pride by three hundredths of a second to win the event in a time of 1:41.43.
PJ Cronauer followed up that relay win with the first of his two victories on the day in the 1000 Free. Cronauer was consistent throughout the entire race, actually turning in faster splits as the race wore on. His time of 10:41.63 was more than 25 seconds ahead of Widener's Shane Hubbard (10:56.91), who finished in second-place. Later in the afternoon, Cronauer won the other distance race, the 500 Free, with a time of 5:08.74. While his margin was not as great in the 500 Free, Cronauer still got to the wall first thanks in part to his final split of 27.82.
Also in the 500 Free,
Brett Graff turned in a top-five finish with a time of 5:19.62 to take fifth place. Graff also had a solid sixth-place finish in the 200 IM with a time of 2:11.22. He was less than six seconds behind his teammate,
Isaac McCabe's winning time of 2:05.24.
In addition to his victory in the 200 IM, McCabe also finished second in the 200 Breast with a time of 2:15.46.
Michael Shoul took third in the event with a mark of 2:21.16 while
Brett Graff finished sixth, getting to the wall in 2:26.35.
Mark Lukens earned a pair of second-place finishes in the sprints, getting to the wall in 22.81 in the 50 Free and 50.06 in the 100 Free. Widener's Shane Douthit won both events with times of 22.57 and 49.77, respectively.
Other top-five finishes on the day, included
Sage Sobek's fourth-place finish in the 200 Free (1:54.40) and
Andrew Roberti (2:09.84) and
Ben Clarke (2:16.10) finishing back-to-back in the 200 Fly with fourth and fifth place finishes, respectively.
The Falcons ended their day by finishing fourth in the 200 Free Relay. The team of
Jacob Whipple,
Sage Sobek,
PJ Cronauer, and
Johnathon Lacayo got to the wall in 1:34.33.
As mentioned, Messiah will be back in action next weekend when they travel to Arcadia to take on the Knights at 12:00 p.m. on Saturday.
