MANKATO – The upstart Mankato West boys’ swimming and diving team led the Albert Lea Tigers through most of the meet.

Friday, December 14, 2001

MANKATO – The upstart Mankato West boys’ swimming and diving team led the Albert Lea Tigers through most of the meet.

The Tigers were ahead when it mattered.

A 1-2 finish in the final event, the 400-yard freestyle relay, rallied the Tigers to a 95-88 victory at Mankato West Thursday night.

&uot;It was a pretty wild meet,&uot; said Albert Lea coach Jon Schmitz. &uot;They’re a lot better team than we expected, a team that’s maturing.&uot;

And the Tigers didn’t have their strongest team in the pool.

&uot;We did mix the lineup up a little bit,&uot; said Schmitz. &uot;We wanted to see what some other kids could do. It really put the pressure on us to do what we had to do at the end, but we were able to come out on top.&uot;

Schmitz made sure of that, saving some of his stronger freestylers for the final event.

Chris Borge, Josh Elwood, Justin Elwood and Ryan Lowe won it in 3:46.31 while Ben Lindeman, Matt Hagen, Mitch Johnson and Ethan Berg took second in 3:55.73.

The Tigers were second in the other two relays.

There were three individual firsts for Albert Lea: Josh Elwood, 200 free, 2:08.29; Johnson, 100 butterfly, 1:02.56; and Lindeman, 500 free, 5:45.89.

Other Albert Lea places: Lowe, third, 200 free and third, 100 free; Matheson, third, 200 IM and third, 100 breast; Ben Schreiber, second, 200 IM and second, 100 breast; Johnson, second, 50 free; Justin Elwood, fourth, 50 free and second, 100 butterfly; Colton Jensen, fifth, 50 free and second, 500 free; Berg, second, 100 free and second, 100 back; Josh Elwood, fourth, 500 free; Borge, third, 100 back; Sean Harms, fifth, 100 back.

The win improved the Tigers to 2-0 in dual meets.

The Albert Lea junior varsity evened its record at 1-1 with a 61-42 victory.

The Tigers compete in the Mankato West Invitational Saturday, though the site for the meet has been changed to Austin’s Ellis Middle School.