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Milwaukee Men Look To Defend Title At Wheaton Invitational

Divers also set to compete at Miami (OH) Invitational

Nov. 27, 2007

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee men's swimming & diving team returns to action after a long layoff this weekend. The swimming team will head to the Wheaton Invitational and the diving team will be making the trip to the Miami (OH) Invitational. Both meets start Friday and wrap up Saturday.

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SCOUTING THE MEET:
The Panthers have traditionally done very well at the Wheaton Invitational and will be looking to defend their championship from a year ago. Overall, the team has won the event seven times in its 13 trips to the invitational.

AT THE MIAMI (OH) INVITATIONAL:
This is just the second year that the Panthers will be competing at the Miami Invitational, which has other schools also taking part in swimming events. Diving preliminaries start each day at 2 p.m. and finals start at 8 p.m. Friday's action includes men's one-meter and women's three-meter boards. Saturday will have men's three-meter and women's one-meter action.

LAST TIME IN THE POOL:
Junior Robby Leibold and sophomore Patrick Rongitsch each won twice to help the men to a split with the University of Illinois at Chicago and North Dakota Nov. 10.

Sophomore Jeremy Waldhart also added an individual victory as the Panthers beat the Fighting Sioux, 159-139, but fell to the Flames, 161-138.

Leibold continued his impressive start to the season, winning two more times in addition to a third-place finish. He now has nine wins in 14 races this season. He won the 1,650 freestyle in 16:19.92 and then added a win in the 500 free with a season-best time of 4:42.26. He also placed third in the 200 fly in a time of 1:55.67.

Rongitsch won both boards, recording point totals of 271.40 on the one-meter and 270.10 on the three-meter board.

Waldhart won for the third time this season, taking first in the 200 backstroke in a season-best time of 1:56.26.

LAST YEAR:
Chase Gravengood and Robby Leibold each won individual events on day two to help lead Milwaukee to a title at the Wheaton Invitational.

The Panthers ended the meet with 713.50 points, comfortably ahead of second-place Washington University, which had 640.50. Hope (third with 523.50), Grand Valley State (fourth, 512) and host Wheaton (502) rounded out the top five teams.

Leibold set a meet and pool record in the 1650 freestyle, and very nearly broke one of the oldest records in the UWM books as well. His time of 15.51.70 came in just two-hundredths of a second behind the UWM mark of 15:51.68 set by Brent Boock back in 1991.

Gravengood added another win, this time in the 100 butterfly, giving him a 3-for-3 weekend with a season-best time of 50.17. On day one, he established a new school, meet and pool record in the 200 IM, winning in a time of 1:51.35. That broke his school-record time of 1:51.70 he set two years ago and the pool/meet record of 1:51.47 set three years ago by Wheaton's Tyler Dobelbower. His time of 1:50.61 in the 200 fly broke the meet record of 1:51.90 and was a season-best by over six seconds.

STARTING IN THE TOP 10:
The first NCAA Division I mid-major collegeswimming.com poll of the season has come out and the Panthers are starting high. They enter the poll this season at No. 9 with 166.56 points. Navy tops the first poll with 183.48 points. UWM appeared at No. 15 in the initial poll a season ago.

WHAT "SOPHOMORE SLUMP"?:
Sophomore P.J. Rongitsch continues to dominate his competition, as he earned Horizon League Diver of the Week honors for the second time this season Nov. 13. He won both boards at the same meet for the second time this season against UIC and North Dakota, scoring 271.40 on the one-meter and winning the three-meter by over 20 points (270.10). He now has five victories, four second-place finishes, and one third-place finish this season.

FAST START ... AND SMART - PART 2:
Junior Robby Leibold is off to the best start of his UWM career and has been rewarded outside of the pool for it as well. Last month, he was named the Horizon League Scholar Athlete of the Week for the third time in his career. In early November, he one-upped that honor by earning league scholar-athlete of the month for October. In 14 races so far this season, Leibold has posted nine victories and four second-place finishes.

UP NEXT:
Milwaukee will finally open the home portion of its 2007-08 schedule next weekend at the Klotsche Natatorium. The team will host South Dakota State Friday and then Valparaiso Saturday. Friday's action gets underway at 6:30 p.m. and Saturday's meet is slated for a 1 p.m. start.