With a 83-79 Liberty boys swim team lead, the meet against Southern Lehigh came down to the last event of the night, the 400 free relay won by the Hurricanes to score a 91-85 victory over the Spartans on Jan. 9 at Liberty.

“The boys swam well, and I told both sides this was gonna be a close meet,” said Liberty coach Reik Foust. “We were pretty much tied going into diving. David (Gabrielle) won the 100 free, David won the backstroke, and Robert (Coddington) was fantastic in the 500. He dropped 20 seconds or something like that. We just had great swims in the second half.”

The first half wasn’t without its first-place finishes either.

Gabrielle, Adam Barlow, Coddington, and John Cornish led off with a win in the 200 medley relay (1:43.95).

Everett Collins won the 200 free (1:59.88), and Barlow won the 200 IM (2:13.41).

Jaxson Dorsey added six points to the Hurricanes’ total after winning the diving event with 187.45 points.

Gabrielle was first in the 100 free (49.17) and the 100 backstroke (56.97).

“This year my freestyle is looking pretty good for district time and possibly state time, and my backstroke hasn’t really gotten better, but my freestyle has, so I really want to try and do my best in that,” Gabrielle said.

Barlow came in first in the 100 breaststroke (1:01.37) and earlier in the meet anchored the winning 200 free relay team of Collins, Logan Malozi, and Cornish (1:34.98).

Gabrielle led off in the winning 400 free relay of Collins, Coddington, and Malozi (3:34.75).

“I knew I had the best freestyle in the pool, so leading off, I would try and get as much of a lead as I can, and luckily, it was enough,” Gabrielle said. “I was tired, but I was like, this is the last event. Just hit it and see what I can do.”

Malozi clinched the win as the anchor.

“We were only winning by four points, so it came down to that relay,” said Malozi. “The first 50, I just went through the motions, and the second 50, I saw he was tearing right behind me, and that’s when the adrenaline kicked in. I knew I had to go. I was just praying that I used all my energy the way I do in practice, sprinting all out the last 25 as hard as I can no matter how I feel.”

Said Gabrielle, “Because we were so evenly matched, I would say it was a pretty good win for us, so we’re definitely happy about that.”