by Michael LoRe

Friday February 13, 2009, 4:07 PM

Butterflies, flowers, suns and stars.

Temporary tattoos featuring things like that were plastered below the navels of many Freedom High School boys swimmers in last night’s 98-88 victory against rivals Liberty.

It wasn’t a bet or a sorry attempt to psyche out opposing swimmers, but just some quirky idea senior Jake Magnan and his fellow swimmers took part of.

After the meet, Magnan admitted the idea came about after he and teammates finished eating at Perkins one day. They had some change and bought a tattoo or two from the vending machine.

The boys decided to do it again for their final dual meet of the year, stopping by the same restaurant “around 4 p.m. with about $5 worth of quarters.”

“Whatever is a unifying cry for them, I’ll let it go,” coach Kevin Remaly said. “As long as it’s nothing illegal. Go for it. As long as it takes. If that’s what helped them, God bless them.”

It has yet to be determined if Freedom or any other boys swimmers will don such markings for the District 11 Tournament on Feb. 27-28.

By the way, with the tattoos on Thursday night, the Freedom boys won every event, except 1-meter diving en route to their win.