Coming off intensive practices over the holidays, Liberty High School's boys swim team knew its meet against Southern Lehigh on Jan. 3 would be just as intense.

"It's the closest meet we've had this year," said Hurricane junior, Reid Rossi, after taking first place in the 100 butterfly.

At that point in the meet, the Liberty boys led the Spartans by nine points.

"They're challenging us on a lot of events, but our coach [Reik Foust] pushes us to be as humble as possible, so when a team comes to our pool, it's extra motivation," Rossi said.

Earlier in the meet, Liberty senior, Alex Fitch, outtouched Southern Lehigh's Andrew Johnson in the 200 free with a time of 1:57.21 to Johnson's time of 1:57.26, and Robert Negron won the 50 free for the Hurricanes in 22.24, less than a second under Southern Lehigh's Trevor Decastro.

In the next event, the 100 fly, Rossi's time was 56.48. Southern Lehigh's Chris Schell came in second with a time of 57.69.

"I knew they had a really good butterflier, and we just got out of a week of our hardest practice, so I didn't know if I'd recovered enough," said Rossi. "At the 50, I thought we were close. I felt tired, but I just pushed through it."

Rossi's teammate, Nolan Vanatta, won the 100 breaststroke for the Hurricanes with a time of 1:02.65, and Fitch won a second event, the 500 free, with a time of 5:14.85.

In relays, Rossi, Alexis Calderon, Vanatta, and Brandon Hlavaty opened the meet with a first place finish in the 200 medley relay with a time of 1:44.56, and Rossi, Hlavaty, Jacob Jones, and Negron closed the meet with a first place finish in the 400 free relay with a time of 3:33.77, capturing a Hurricane team victory over the Spartans, 103-80.

Liberty is scheduled to swim in two meets this week, the first at home against Nazareth, and the second at Pocono Mountain East.