The College of Wooster men’s swimming and diving team got its 2008-09 season off on a positive note, finishing in third-place at the North Coast Athletic Conference Relays, while the Fighting Scot women took fifth during the annual event, conducted at Kenyon College on Saturday. Denison University won both meets, with its men totaling 170 points and its women 172.

Wooster’s men’s squad tallied up 96 points, led by the combination of Logan LaBerge, Andrew Olsen, Brendan Horgan, and Eric Babbitt. That group hit the wall third in the 200 medley relay with a time of 1:37.94. Horgan and Babbitt were also part of the third-place 200 freestyle team, along with Adel El-Adawy and Michael Saltzman (1:27.73).

The next best event for the Scots was the 200 butterfly, in which Horgan, El-Adawy, Jon Quiery, and Babbitt joined forces during a fourth-place effort (1:37.89), while Wooster took the fifth-place spot in both the 200 backstroke and 200 breaststroke relays. LaBerge, Horgan, Saltzman, and El-Adawy were the backstrokers (1:41.79), and Olsen, Ryan Radtke, LaBerge, and Tyler Hartley-Shepherd swam the breast (1:55.77).

The Scot women were just shy of a top-three showing themselves, scoring 103 points to rival Wittenberg University’s 105 and Allegheny College’s 124. Their only top-five relay was the 200 butterfly, in which Rebecca Haug, Alice Case, Melissa Haug, and Allie Kibler-Campbell placed fifth in a time of 1:52.51.

Wooster’s regular dual season begins next weekend, when it travels to Mt. Union College Friday night and hosts Wittenberg Saturday afternoon.