WALLA WALLA, Wash.  Whitman's men's and women's swim teams spent nearly all of Friday evening ahead of University of Puget Sound during a Northwest Conference sweep of the visiting Loggers at Harvey Pool.

The Blues men led from the opening relay in a 131-71 victory, and the women took control for good in the third event to lead to a 128-77 win.

Led by Jared Sears' individual wins in the 50- and 100-yard freestyles, along with leading off the victorious 400 medley relay to start the night, Whitman's men touched first in eight of 11 events. Sarah Davidson and Tara Stahlecker racked up two wins apiece individually to spearhead the womens' eight event wins.

Sears, Jonah Rodewald, Fisher Munro and Clark Sun set the men off on the right foot in the opening relay, posting a four-second victory of the UPS "A" relay.

Sun won the third event of the night, the 200 free, Sears answered with his win in the 50, followed by a Rodewald victory in the 200 individual medley.

Munro in the 200 butterfly, Sears in the 100 free, then Colin Aslett in the 200 backstroke continued the victory streak for the Blues.

Though the string of six event wins helped add to the cushion, separation between the two teams came early in the 50 free and 200 IM.

Whitman placed first, second (Aslett), fourth (Noah Schlenk) and fifth (Alex Lee) in the sprint, then swept first, second (Kieran Lenssen) and third (Teddy Larkin) in the IM.

The finishing touch of the night was the Blues' fourteen-second win the final event, the 400 free relay. Aslett, Rodewald, Schlenk and Sun teamed up to post a time of 3 minutes, 16.78 times to race past runner-up UPS' "A" team (3:30.37).

Puget Sound opened the women's meet with a win in the 400 medley relay, but began giving ground immediately. In large part to Sarah Davidson's efforts.

The sophomore pulled off a rare double in the meet, swimming in the second event, the 1,000 free, and then again in the third event, the 200 free.

She won the 1,000 (11:04.27) by 25 seconds, rested during the men's 1,000, then stepped on the blocks again for the 200, where she trailed only Stahlecker (2:00.87) in taking second with a time of 2:02.96.

Not done for the night, though, she was at it again in the third to last event, the 500, winning it in a time of 5:25.98 to lead a 1-2 finish with teammate Abbey Felley (5:33.27).

Davidson and Leah Petrini (fourth place) cut deeply into the Loggers' advantage from the relay, and the 1-2 finish in the next event, the 200 free, from Stahlecker and Davidson pushed the Blues in front for the first time and for good.

Zoë Hill (first, 24.98 seconds) and Gaby Thomas (third) extended the Whitman lead in the 50 free. And though they didn't win the next event, second (Mara Selznick), third (Felley), fourth (Maddy Gyongyosi) and fifth (Miranda Williams) places in the 200 IM compensated in outscoring the Loggers 10-9 in that race.

Stahlecker and Hill teamed up for a 1-2 finish for Whitman in the 100 free, and Selznick (first) and Jill Low (fourth) added to the lead in the 200 back.

After Davidson's and Felley's 1-2 in the 500, Whitman rolled out a 1-2-3-5 finish in the final individual event, the 200 breaststroke. Williams (2:23.80) won the event to lead Hoffman, Amanda Li and Gyongyosi, respectively, to the pads.

Thomas, Selznick, Stahlecker and Hill capped off the night with their own dominating 400 free relay win, posting a time of 3:41.14 to out pace the UPS "A" quartet by 10 seconds.

Friday's racing was the first for the Blues since their winter training trip to Southern California.

"We are coming off the hardest and longest [yardage volume] training period of the whole year," explained head coach Jennifer Blomme. "And our swimmers are adapting to this beautifully, as we had a number of swimmers going near their best times, which is practically unheard of this weekend."

The back-to-back-to-back double workouts over winter training trips beat up the body, and that fatigue can tax the mental state of the swimmers as well. But Whitman answered the bell.

"What's exciting is that 'race mentality' I saw tonight," said Blomme. "They fought for every point, whether it was for first or fifth.

"This happened right away in the second event (the 1,000) when Leah Petrini -- who had trailed her nearest competitor for most of the race -- pulled up even with her competitor for the last 150 yards. Then in the last 12 yards she just put her head down and sprinted, touching out her competitor by only 14/100s of a second for fourth place.

"That's the type of heart that makes this team so special, and so fun to coach."

The Blues are back in action Saturday against Pacific Lutheran University. The meet, the final home one for the senior class, begins at 1 p.m. in Harvey Pool.