Miami Swimmers Face Purdue

Oct. 27, 2011

OXFORD, Ohio - Before Miami's men's swimmers dive in for action at Purdue's Boilermaker Aquatic Center Friday afternoon (5 p.m.), the scoreboard will show the RedHawks with a 28-10 lead.

That odd occurrence is due to the fact that the diving competition took place last Friday (Oct. 21) during the women's meet in Oxford, with Miami's springboard triumvirate of JIMMY BERES (Columbus), Chris Hoppler (Germantown, MD) and Mike Grainger (Cincinnati) out-performing their Boilermaker counterparts.

Beres, a senior, won both the one- and three-meter events, while Hoppler and Grainger exchanged third- and fourth-place finishes in those respective events.

Last Saturday, head coach Pete Lindsay's men defeated the Musketeers by a score of 156-106 to move to 2-1 on the season. Junior Dan Nemeth (Highland Heights), this week's Miami Male Athlete of the Week, and senior Chris Gunnels (Chapel Hill, NC) led the men with one relay and two individual wins apiece. Nemeth sprinted his way to a first-place finish in the 50 and 100 freestyles, turning in times of 21.26 and 47.07, respectively, and helped the 200 freestyle relay team cap off the meet with a win. Gunnels anchored the 200 free relay and won the 100 and 200 backstrokes, touching the wall in 52.42 and 1:53.96, respectively.

The Miami men also got wins from junior Alex Reinhardt (Littleton, CO) in the 500 freestyle (4:44:04), sophomores Sean Minderlein (Mullica Hill, NJ) and MIKE CAVANAUGH (Bowling Green) in the 1000 free (9:49.99) and 200 butterfly (1:54.89), respectively, and freshman Patrick Greitzer (Springfield) in the 100 breaststroke (59.21). Junior Anderson Whipp (Fort Wayne, IN) and freshman Joe Baumgartner (St. Louis, MO) were the other two members of the first-place 200 free relay team that turned in a time of 1:24.79.

"We were erratic in our first meet at SIU on Oct. 8 but swam much better against Xavier last Saturday," said Lindsay. "I'm hoping for continued improvement at Purdue. Our sprinters are starting to come around and we need to get better in our other events as well. We're anxious for our eight freshmen to get another chance to compete."

Purdue had a week off after opening its new season Oct. 15 by winning the four-team Indiana Intercollegiates meet at the Boilermaker Aquatic Center. Manuel Gutierrez had the greatest impact among Purdue's newcomers. The freshman won the 200 freestyle and finished second in the 100 at the Indiana Intercollegiates. Fellow freshman Lyam Dias joins the mix Friday. He'll make his Purdue debut this weekend after spending the last couple weeks in Mexico competing for Team Canada at the Pan American Games. A fifth-place finish in the finals of the 200 individual medley highlighted his international experience in Guadalajara. A year ago it was Brian Kiel that won a pair of events against Miami in his first collegiate dual meet. The Minnesota native captured the 200 backstroke and 200 individual medley and also swam on Purdue's medley relay winner. After finishing his freshman campaign as the team's top performer in both events, he picked up where left off early this season with a pair of victories at the Indiana Intercollegiates two weekends ago.

Miami's Travel Roster

Mike Cavanaugh

Mike Heavilon