ANNAPOLIS, Md. -- The Navy swimming and diving teams combined for 14 event victories in a pair of losses by the Mids to Penn State, Friday evening at Lejeune Hall in Annapolis.  The season opener for all of the teams saw the Nittany Lions win the women's meet by the score of 158-142 and the men's meet by the count of 172-28.

"Unfortunately we were not able to cap off the win," said Navy women's swimming head coach John Morrison.  "It was a very solid start to the season.  Our tuneup meet last week at Virginia set us up for some great performances this week.  We are proud of the grit our team displayed.  Following a few event losses early in the meet, we fought valiantly to gain the lead at the first break.  Hats off to Penn State for scoring big in the final events to earn the win."

"I was very happy with the way the team fought through this meet," said Navy men's swimming head coach Bill Roberts.  "After we were able to get a close win in the medley relay, we did a really good job in the subsequent events to establish an early lead.  To Penn State's credit, they finished the meet better than we did."

The women's meet was close from start to finish.  Navy won six of the first 10 events of the meet before Penn State closed by winning four of the last six, including the meet-ending 200 individual medley and the 400 freestyle relay races.

Winning a pair of races for the Mids were Ela Habjan and Caroline Irwin, with diver Mackenzie Kim also placing first on each diving board. 

Habjan won the 100 back (55.07, won by 1.88 seconds) and 200 back (2:02.35, won by 1.5 seconds) events while Irwin won the 50 free (23.69, won by two-hundredths of a second) and 100 fly (55.87, won by six-tenths of a second) races.  Those two also swam on Navy's winning 200 medley relay team.  

Kim posted scores of 251.33 to win the one-meter board by 1.05 points and 252.98 to win the three-meter event by 6.30 points.

Also winning an event for the women's team was Lauren Walsh, who posted a time of 1:04.11 to win the 100 breast by one-quarter of a second.

"The highlights were Caroline's double and Ela's sweep of the backstroke events," said Morrison.  "Mackenzie also was huge on the boards.  Our breaststroke corps led by Lauren and Maddie Koutavas did an awesome job.  It was exciting to see freshmen Elsie Delacruz and Allie Maloney step up too."

The Navy men's team won the 200 medley relay as well as five individual events.

Dean Jones began the individual event portion of the meet by winning the 1000 free by 12 seconds with his time of 9:14.76.  Everet Andrew followed with a winning time of 1:37.53 in the 200 free.  He won the race by 1.7 seconds.  Juan Mora posted a victory in the 100 breast.  His time of 54.28 gave him first place by just under one-half of a second.  Ben Irwin recorded a 1:46.77 to win the 200 back by seven-hundredths of a second.  

Additionally, Blakeman Shaw scored 307.20 points to win the one-meter board by 15 points.

"We knew there were going to be a lot of close races," said Roberts.  "Even though Penn State pulled away toward the end, I thought our guys did a very good job of battling with each race."

The Navy teams will play host to UMBC and William & Mary on October 12.