Lake Forest College senior Kristofer Korth won a pair of individual events as the Forester men's swimming and diving team routed host Lawrence University 244-31 but were edged out 149-139 by the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater on Saturday. The Lake Forest women's team fell 197-67 to Whitewater and dropped a 146-117 decision to Lawrence.
Korth also helped the Lake Forest men's 200-medley relay team edge out Whitewater by just two-tenths of a second to start the meet with a victory. The relay team also included sophomore Jakobi McClellan and juniors Orion Huey and Travis Johnson.
The Foresters' first win in an individual event was turned in by Korth, who touched the wall first in the 100-breaststroke with a time of 1:00.84, nearly two seconds ahead of the runner-up. His margin of victory was an even more impressive nine seconds in the 200-breaststroke, which he won in 2:11.46.
Sophomore Simona Kurta posted the Forester women's team's only victory in a swimming event when she placed first in the 100-butterfly. Her time of 1:01.84 was .61 seconds faster than the runner-up from Lawrence.
The Lake Forest men posted victories in the final two events in the pool. Junior Sam Freedberg and Korth were first and second in the 200-IM with Freedberg posting a winning time of 2:00.70. The Foresters then closed out the meet with a narrow triumph in the 200-freestyle relay. Sophomore David Bunting combined with McClellan, Johnson, and Huey to edge out runner-up Whitewater by 0.48 seconds.
Lake Forest was the only one of the three schools with divers. Freshman Rachael Purgerson finished with 193.80 points in the women's 1-meter competition while classmate Heath Ogawa shattered his own program record with 343.73 points and sophomore Matt Demirs tallied 212.70 in the men's event. Ogawa also posted a score of 290.95 off the 3-meter board.
The Forester men are now 4-4 and the women 1-7 in dual meets this season.
Lake Forest will host its final meet of 2015-16 next Saturday at 1:00 p.m. The other teams in the double-dual will be Olivet Nazarene University and the University of Chicago. The Forester seniors will be recognized before the contest.
