LEXINGTON, Va.- The VMI Swimming & Diving team posted a 142-84 win over Catholic University Saturday at the Cocke Hall pool. Led by sophomore Braden Orr's (Pennington, N.J./Hopewell Valley) time of 21.76 seconds in the 50 meter freestyle, the Keydets (2-1) won nine of the 11 events that both teams competed in before VMI swam the final two events of the meet as an exhibition.

Multiple event winners for the Keydets included sophomore Kevin Vik (Eagle River, Alaska/Chugiak), who won the 500 meter freestyle event with a time of 5:08.02 and the 1000 meter freestyle with a 10:40.44, junior Bart Payne (Mechanicsville, Va./Atlee) and senior Matt Dowdy (Richmond, Va./James River). Payne took the 200 meter individual medley race in 2:07.49, then won the 100 meter butterfly in 56.85 seconds, while Dowdy's scores of 129.50 in 1 meter diving and 130.80 in 3 meter diving were each good enough for wins.

"I'm really excited about this win," said VMI head coach Bill Nicholson. "We swam smart, aggressive and fearless today. We won all of the close races, which is a great sign for us down the road."

Other Keydet victors included freshman Hank Lee (Arlington, Va./Hargrave Military) who won the 200 meter freestyle with a time of 1:50.05, and senior Jim Driggs (Mechanicsville, Va./Atlee), who took home the 100 meter backstroke race with a time of 55.58 seconds.

Catholic's two event victories on the day came in the 200 meter medley relay, with a time of 1:44.56 posted by the team of Paul Czar, Tim Creazzo, Will Giannobile and Dan Finnegan, and the 100 meter freestyle, where Jim Horstmann's time of 48.77 seconds gave him the victory.

The VMI Swimming & Diving team will now take off for the holidays, and return to action on January 15, when they compete in a tri-meet against Northeast Conference foes Howard and Georgetown in Radford, Va. That meet is scheduled to begin at 1 p.m.