After finishing fifth overall in the Patriot League Championship last year, the Lehigh men’s swimming team is committed to coming out on top this year.
The group will head into the Patriot League Championships this upcoming week. It enters the tournament fresh off of a win against Drexel University in its regular season finale. The Mountain Hawks came up on top with help from the 200-relay team, which consists of sophomore Jamal Willis, freshman Zach Tieke, senior Owen Dunbar and sophomore Justin White. Overall, the swimming and diving team finished the regular season with a record of 6-5.
Looking back to last year, the team headed into Nationals as well, where sophomore Jacob Moyar was the first Lehigh swimmer to ever qualify for a consolation final. Sophomore Kevin Huntley and Willis also placed in the top 50 in their events against the top swimmers in the country.
Furthermore, heading into the Patriot League Championships, the team is confident that it will perform as expected and put Lehigh’s name up high. Also, the team has momentum coming into the championships because it recently beat Drexel, right after coming off a loss against rival Bucknell University.
They started off the meet slow, but then started to build up its momentum and came up winning six of the final eight swimming events. It still was not enough for them to overcome the deficit.
On the other hand, the Hawks beat another big rival, Lafayette College. The team has now beaten Lafayette two years in a row.
“The Patriot League Championship will be great,” senior Eric Sherwood said. “It’s definitely a good time. It will be the last one for all the seniors, so we will try to leave it all out there and finish strong.”
Eric Sherwood set the Lehigh school record for the 800 free relay with a time of 6:44.25. He was also on the Patriot League Academic Honor Roll in 2012 and 2014.
The Patriot League Championships will begin on Feb. 18 and last through Feb. 21.
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