ANNAPOLIS, Md. -- The Navy swimming and diving teams closed their dual meet seasons by posting a pair of victories Friday at Lejeune Hall in Annapolis.  The men's team (11-4) won the last two events of the meet to edge Columbia (2-5), 153-147, and the women's team (9-5) won 14 events to defeat Richmond (0-4), 154-135.

"I am super happy for the team," said men's swimming head coach Bill Roberts.  "It took a total team effort for us to get the win.  Going into the meet we knew this would be a close one and anticipated it going down to the last event.  I could not be more proud of the team with their working through the nuances of the meet and the score going back and forth by staying within themselves and not trying to win the meet in one event.  They kept focusing being better in each of their next events and that mindset worked well."

"We were very pleased with our overall performance for a Friday afternoon," said women's swimming head coach John Morrison.  "Everyone stepped up to send off our seniors with a good win over a tough Richmond team."

The men's meet was not decided until the final event of the day, the 400 free relay.  Navy built what would prove to be the largest lead of the meet for either team at 104-84.  Columbia promptly won the next four events to take a 137-127 lead with just two events remaining.

Navy's Juan Mora won the 200 individual medley with a time of 1:49.93 to edge Columbia's Beri Yang for the victory by one-tenth of a second.  Yang led by 11-hundrdths of a second after the butterfly and by two-hundredths of a second after both the backstroke and breaststroke legs of the event.

Mora's effort, combined with his teammates Stephen Aguirre and Luca Oliva placing third and fifth, respectively, in the race, drew the Mids to within 143-140.  That meant Navy had to win the 400 free relay to claim the victory.  Any other result and Columbia would win the meet.

Columbia swimmers led at the 50, 100, 150 and 200-yard time checks.  Navy's third swimmer in the water, Ben Stankovich closed the gap to one one-hundredth of a second after the first half of his race, then finished his effort with an advantage of just over eight-tenths of a second.  This left anchor swimmers Simon Thompson from Navy and Zion James from Columbia to battle it out.

Thompson led James by just over one-half of a second after 50 yards, but James kept closing as the race wore on.  The two were pretty much neck-and-neck and stroke-for stroke down the stretch.  Thompson out-touched James by sixth-hundredths of a second for the event win and account for the sixth and final lead change in the team scoring.  The Mids also placed third in the race.

Navy began the meet by winning the 200 medley relay.  After Columbia won the 1000 free and 200 free, Ben Irwin led a 1-2 finish for Navy in the 100 back with his winning time of 49.40.  Mora earned his first victory of the day by placing first in the 100 breast (54.42) by one-half of a second.  The second half of the meet started with Austin Lockhart (44.93) leading a 1-2-3 sweep for the Mids in the 50 free.  Irwin followed by winning the 200 back (1:46.53) by three-tenths of a second to give the Mids the 104-84 advantage.

"You have to give a lot of credit to the guys who won a bunch of close races," said Roberts.  "To mention just one individual, Juan in the 200 IM.  It was a very close event.  Juan just really stayed within himself on the last two legs and got his hand to the wall first to give us a chance to win with the relay.  We felt we had the relay that could win the meet for us, but we couldn't do that without the 200 IM results."

There was far less drama in the women's meet as Navy won the first nine events of the afternoon.

Winning multiple events were Maddie Koutavas, 100 breast (1:03.9) and 200 breast (2:17.50); Catherine Weaverling, 100 fly (52.52) and 200 fly (2:05.02); and Mackenzie Kim, one-meter (290.18) and three-meter diving (328.50).

Caroline Irwin shared the victory in the 50 free with teammate Jennifer Luong (24.20) and won the 100 fly outright (57.12).  

Also winning events were Marin Rose, 1000 free (10:27.20); Samantha Clifford, 200 free (1:52.33); Allie Maloney, 100 back (57.96); and Elsie Delacruz, 200 IM (2:06.65).

The Mids bookended the meet with victories in the 200 medley and 400 free relays.

"Our seniors did a great job of racing with several –– Catherine, Caroline, Jennifer –– earning individual wins and our all-senior relay team ending the meet on a high," said Morrison.  "The underclass followed their lead with Maddie bringing home wins in the breaststrokes, Marin in the 1000, Allie in the 100 and Elsie in the 200 IM.  And we received two big scores from Mackenzie in diving.

"We are in a good spot heading into the championship portion of our season."

The Navy teams will compete Feb. 1 at the Bucknell Invitational.