ORLANDO â€" Through three of the six events held Friday night, Nova Southeastern put a serious dent in Florida Southern’s 58-point lead at the SSC Championships, but the Moccasins took back everything they lost and then some over the last three events. Getting a win from junior Spencer Rowe, and runner-up finishes from three others during that stretch, the Mocs more than doubled the margin they originally owned.

Going into the final day of competition, Florida Southern leads Nova Southeastern 653-528, and Tampa is a close third with 526 points. In addition to Rowe’s win in the 100-yard breaststroke, the Moccasins also won the finals of 200-yard medley relay, and the consolation finals of the same event. In addition to the three second-place finishes they had over the final three events, the Mocs also saw sophomore Edson Lima and junior Allan Gutierrez finish second and third in the 100-yard butterfly earlier in the night, and take five of the eight positions in the finals of the 100-yard backstroke at the end.

Early on, it was senior Thomas Nguyen, senior Zach Edwards, sophomore Edson Lima and senior Robbie Swan who took the 200-medley relay in an SSC Championship record time of 1:28.93, which was also good enough for an NCAA “B” cut. It’s the fourth year in a row the Moccasins have won that title, and they’ve lowered their time every season. Meanwhile, freshman Diego Gimenez teamed up with Rowe, Gutierrez and Marin to win the consolation finals in the 200-medley relay, and their time of 1:30.02 was topped by only the Florida Southern-A team in the main finals.

The Sharks of Nova Southeastern finished first, second and fourth in the 400-yard IM, led by Marco Aldabe’s meet-record time. The Moccasins got fifth- and seventh-place finishes from redshirt freshman Alec Wathen and junior Dylan Lake, but the Sharks out-scored them, 73-25 in that event.

The two teams were dead even in points in the 100-yard butterfly where Saint Leo’s Matheus Assis set another overall conference record with a time of 48.07 seconds, but Lima was second in 48.65, an NCAA “B” time that would have otherwise been the meet record too. Lima was also only 0.08 seconds off the school record which Gutierrez set earlier this year, and Gutierrez was only 0.22 seconds behind him on Friday.

The Mocs began their second-half surge in the 200-yard freestyle as Marin was second to Nova’s Florian Mehlan by 0.73 seconds, junior Luis Rojas was fifth, and freshman Franco Lupoli was sixth. Raul Garrastazu was second in the consolation race, with all four Moccasins achieving NCAA “B” standards.

Rowe and Edwards then finished 1-2 in the 100-yard breaststroke, with both of them also reaching the NCAA “B” standard. Their two times on Friday (54.46 seconds for Rowe, and 55.17 seconds for Edwards) were easily their best of the season.

Where Florida Southern really opened up its lead though was in the final event of the night, the 100-yard backstroke. With five of the eight finalists in the race, the Moccasins scored 70 points to Nova’s seven. The Sharks had no swimmers in the championship finals, and only one in the consolation. Tampa’s Karl Burdis won the individual title, but Nguyen was second for Florida Southern and just missed an NCAA automatic qualifying time in 48.45 seconds. That was less than two-tenths of a second away.

After Nguyen, Gimenez was fourth, Lima was fifth, freshman Evan Coleman was sixth, and Swan was eighth. Four of the Moccasin finalists reached the NCAA “B” standard.

Florida Southern will try to close out its second straight conference championship on Saturday, with competition scheduled in the 1,650-freestyle, 200-backstroke, 100-freestyle, 200-breaststroke, 200-butterfly, and 400-freestyle relay.