DAVIE â€" Juan Tolosa led a 1-2-3 finish in the 500-yard freestyle for his second win of the meet, Luis Rojas started a 2-3-4 finish for Florida Southern in the 100-yard backstroke, and Raul Garrastazu reached the finals in two different events to pace the Moccasins on the third day of the Sharks Invitational hosted by Nova Southeastern. Their performance helped the top-ranked Mocs remain in second place among the eight teams competing.

During Monday’s prelims, the Moccasins had four swimmers qualify for the finals of the 500-freestyle, and they were the same four who made the finals of the 1,000 on Saturday. Franco Lupoli was their top swimmer in the prelims, with Tolosa third, Jesus Marin fifth, and Garrastazu ninth. Monday night, however, Tolosa was first, Marin was second, and Lupoli was third, with Garrastazu placing sixth, and all four of them swam in NCAA “B” qualifying times. Tolosa’s winning time of 4:28.94 was only 0.88 seconds off his school record set at last year’s national finals, and it was just 0.42 seconds ahead of Marin, and 2.98 seconds ahead of Marin.

The next event of Monday’s schedule was the 100-backstroke where Rojas was runner-up in a time of 49.13 seconds, finishing three-tenths of a second behind Tampa’s Karl Burdis. Rojas was followed by Thomas Nguyen (49.23) and Diego Gimenez (49.38), while Edson Lima was seventh (50.66) and Evan Coleman was ninth (51.49). Rojas, Nguyen, Gimenez, and Lima all had NCAA “B” times.

Florida Southern sent one swimmer to the finals of 100-yard breaststroke, where Patrick Costello represented the Moccasins with a ninth-place finish at 59.43 seconds. Costello is swimming in his first meet of the season, and his 100-breaststroke time was the best by any Florida Southern swimmer this year.

In the 200-yard butterfly, Florida Southern got its third runner-up finish of the day when Allan Gutierrez clocked in at 1:49.38, putting him 0.8 seconds behind Zane Hranac of Tampa. Garrastazu was third in 1:51.67, and Alec Wathen was eighth in 1:55.65. The times posted by Gutierrez and Garrastazu were both NCAA “B” standards, and both of them slashed roughly three seconds off their previous top times.

In addition to their individuals who reached the finals in different events Monday, the Moccasins got runner-up finishes from Robbie Swan and Dylan Lake in the consolation finals of the 100-backstroke and 200-butterfly.

Florida Southern finished the night with a victory in the 800-yard freestyle relay, where Gutierrez, Rojas, Lupoli and Marin beat out Tampa’s #1 team by 0.44 seconds. The Moccasins had a time of 6:37.29, an NCAA “B” standard which set a new meet record in the event as well. It had been set just last year by another Florida Southern relay team that featured Rojas and Gutierrez.

Tampa still leads the meet with 1,313½ points, putting the Spartans 269 points ahead of the Moccasins. The Mocs have won four of the 10 individual races, and have also taken first place in three of the consolation finals. Third-place Nova Southeastern is 506 points behind Tampa, with Florida Tech a distant fourth.

The Sharks Invitational concludes Tuesday night with the final five events.