WINTER PARK â€" After splitting a double-dual meet against Florida State and Emory in their last outing, the Florida Southern men’s swimming team returned to the pool here with a dominating 167-37 performance over Sunshine State Conference rival Rollins College. The Mocs were able to sweep the top three positions in eight of the 11 events contested.
The Moccasins, who are 2-1 on the season with their only meet loss coming against 15th ranked NCAA Division I opponent Florida State, finished in first place in all 11 events during Saturday’s meet. Adding the 11 first place finishes from Saturday’s event, the Mocs have finished first in 29 events so far this season.
Freshman Joakim Hvalgren (Gavle, Sweden) led the Mocs with two wins during the meet and was one of eight Mocs to obtain an individual victory. Hvalgren won the 100-yard butterfly in a time of 52.00 and also won the 100-yard breaststroke with a personal best time of 1:00.02.
Senior All-American Jeb Halfacre (Gainesville, Fla.) earned an individual event win in the 200-yard freestyle (1:42.85) and was also a part of the 200-yard medley and 200-yard freestyle relay wins. In the 200-yard medley relay Halfacre swam leadoff and was anchor on the 200-yard freestyle relay team.
Other individual event winners were junior Jason King (Smithville, Ga.) who was making his first appearance in the 1000-yard freestyle (9:47.05). Junior Robbie Swan (Snellville, Ga.) came within a tenth of a second of his season best time in the 50-yard freestyle with an event winning time of 21.28. Sophomore Luis Rojas (Caracas, Venezuela) won the 400-yard individual medley in 4:06.25 while sophomore Allan Gutierrez (San Pedro Sula, Honduras) swam FSC’s third best time this season for the win in the 100-yard freestyle (46.82)     Â
Junior Thomas Nguyen (Snellville, Ga.) finished over a full second in front of the second-place finisher for the win in the 100-yard backstroke (52:32) and rounding out the individual event winners was freshman Juan Tolosa (Guipuzcoa, Spain) who edged out a season best 4:39.50 victory in the 500-yard freestyle.
The Mocs controlled both of the relays during the meet by sweeping the two events. The “A†team, which consisted of Halfacre, senior Miguel Ferreira (Caracas Venezuela), King, and R. Swan, swam the 200-yard medley relay in a season best 1:31.92 which was a little over five seconds faster than the second-place team. In the 200-yard freestyle relay the Mocs “A†team, which consisted of R. Swan, Ferreira, junior Zach Edwards (Jacksonville, Fla.) and Haflacre, finished in another season best relay time of 1:24.63.
It will be almost a full month before the Mocs get back into the pool for another meet as they will travel to Fort Lauderdale Dec. 14-17 to compete in the Nova Southeastern Invitational.
