Men's swimming team opens season at MIAA Relays

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. -- The Olivet College men's swimming team opened its 2010-11 season by participating in the 2010 Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association (MIAA) Relays today at the Venema Aquatic Center in Grand Rapids.

There were eight relays in the meet program, and the Olivet men had two finish first, two finish second, two finish third and two finish fourth. Winning were the 200 medley and 200 butterfly relays. On the 200 medley were Kellen Beckwith (Farmington Hills/North Farmington), Josh Mauk (Battle Creek/Lakeview), Rafe Maxwell (Bay City/Western) and Mike Harden (St. Johns), and their time was 1:32.28. On the 200 butterfly were Harden, Mauk, Maxwell and Joel Knight (Battle Creek/Lakeview), and they touched first in 1:35.79.

Second-place finishes were turned in by the 200 backstroke and 200 freestyle relays. Knight along with Mike Mette (Rockford), Nick Edgar (Lansing/Everett) and Brock Jackson (Sturgis) were on the 200 backstroke (1:41.36). Beckwith, Harden, Jackson and Austin Munn (Pinckney) swam on the 200 freestyle (1:27.57).

Finishing third were the 200 breaststroke (2:02.45) and 3x500 freestyle (15:26.80) relays. The 500 freestyle (4:26.04) and 400 medley (3:54.56) relays placed fourth.

"With as many freshmen we have on both teams, I was pleased with how we did today," said Olivet Head Coach Jake Taber. "We had a lot of good swims and learned a lot about our athletes. It was a fun meet, and now we move on and get ready for our first dual meet."

The Comets will start the MIAA dual meet portion of their schedule in two weeks, Nov. 6, when they make the trip to Holland to compete against Hope College at 1 p.m. NOTE: The order of finish mentioned in this release is based on how each did against only the "A" relays from each of the MIAA schools.