Dec. 4, 2011
COLUMBUS, Ohio - The Penn State men's swimming & diving concluded its time at the OSU Invitational with a third place finish in the four-team field. The Nittany Lions added five more NCAA "B" cut swims to bring their total number to 17 for the weekend in the final competition of 2011.
Nate Savoy (Reading, Pa.) opened the Sunday afternoon finals with a fifth-place performance in a personal-best time of 1:44.92 in the 200 backstroke. Savoy was just .03 off of fourth and .55 off of third, while earning an NCAA "B" cut time. In the B Final of the event, Thomas Mershon (Malvern, Pa.) won in a time of 1:48.46, a three-second improvement from the preliminaries.
Brian Alden (Lansdale, Pa.) earned third place in the 100 freestyle clocking a 44.46, just .09 off an NCAA "B" time and .10 from earning second place in the event. His showing was followed up by Mitch Scherer's (Pottstown, Pa.) fourth-place effort in the 200 breaststroke in a time of 1:59.20. Scherer was joined in the A Final by Chris Cipolla (South River, N.J.) who captured eighth place in 2:03.05 after a swim of 2:01.60 in the preliminaries, which was a personal best.
Matt Salig (Downingtown, Pa.) touched the wall in sixth in the 200 butterfly A Final in a time of 1:48.86. The sophomore fly specialist posted a fifth-place, 1:48.81 swim in the preliminaries on Sunday morning.
The OSU Invitational was wrapped up with the 400 freestyle relay as Penn State finished fourth in a season best time of 3:00.22, an NCAA "B" cut. Alden led out in 44.44 before Andrew Sideras (Philadelphia, Pa.), Sean Grier (Hummelstown, Pa.) and Scott Marino (Scotch Plains, N.J.) took over.
Penn State swimming returns to the pool in the New Year when the Nittany Lions take on North Carolina in Naples, Fla. to cap its winter training trip on Jan. 4. The diving contingent will compete Jan. 5-6 at the Bulldog Shootout in Athens, Ga.