SAINT LEO â€" Consecutive wins by sophomore Juan Tolosa, junior Luis Rojas, and senior Thomas Nguyen gave Florida Southern the lead four events into Friday’s meet, but it took another win by Tolosa later on, to give the Moccasins the lead for good, as they pulled out a 143-119 victory over Saint Leo.

After finishing second in the 200-yard medley relay to start the day, the Moccasins finished 1-2-3 in the 1,000-yard freestyle, led by Tolosa (Guipuzcoa, Spain). His time of 9:38.37 was 6.27 seconds faster than teammate sophomore Raul Garrastazu (Dorado, P.R.), who finished second, with freshman Franco Lupoli (Weston, Fla.) placing third, just nine one-hundredths of a second behind Garrastazu. Together, that trio put the Moccasins ahead by four points in the meet.

That lead was expanded when Rojas (Caracas, Venezuela) won the 200-yard freestyle and Nguyen (Snellvile, Ga.)won the 50-yard backstroke. With junior Jesus Marin (Cumana, Venezuela) and freshman Diego Gimenez (Burgos, Spain) placing second in those same events, the Moccasins were up by 26 over the Lions.

Saint Leo then bounced back by winning six straight races, but Florida Southern consistently took second and third, with senior Robbie Swan (Snellville, Ga.) finishing as the runner-up in both the 50- and 100-yard freestyle. That was enough to keep the score tied after the 100-yard breaststroke with three individual races remaining.

That’s when Tolosa stepped up for his second win of the night, edging out Lupoli by 1.1 second in the 500-yard freestyle. It was the second week in a row that Tolosa won both the 1,000- and 500-freestyle races, and also the second week in a row that Lupoli picked up a key second-place finish in the same events.

Their performance against Saint Leo put Florida Southern back in front by 11 points, and the Mocs pulled away when junior Allan Gutierrez (San Pedro Sula, Honduras) captured the 50-yard butterfly in 22.70 seconds, and junior Dylan Lake (Los Alamos, N.M.) did the same in the 100-yard IM in 55.95 seconds. Two other Moccasins, redshirt freshman Alec Wathen (Sunrise, Fla.) and sophomore Dustin Nguyen (Snellville, Ga.) finished second and third in the 100-IM to secure the meet victory for Florida Southern.

Florida Southern, which improved to 2-0 in dual meets this year, will swim again Saturday at 1 p.m. when it hosts Florida Tech at the Hollis Wellness Center Pool.