NEW ROCHELLE, NY – With the entire Iona Campus buzzing with homecoming events, the Iona College men's and women's swimming and diving team didn't disappoint, grabbing three wins today the Hynes Athletics Center Pool.
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The fifth annual Quad Invitational featured 11 new meet records as Iona squared off with St. Francis College, Sacred Heart University and Wagner in a unique 13-event, dual meet format.
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The Iona men swamped the St. Francis men by a score of 165-58, setting eight meet records in the 13 events. The Iona women topped Sacred Heart, 166-71 and St. Francis 130-101; Wagner topped Iona 141-90.
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Iona got out of the gate fast with a new meet mark in the 400-medley relay as
Spencer Moran (52.27);
Shane Syron (1:01.70);
Jalen Ramjohn (50.57) and
Conor Mullin (47.72) combined for a 3:32.26 clocking, which was .53 under the team's record set in 2018.
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Co-captain and senior Matthew Anderson lowered the 2015 mark of 9:58.28 held by Saint Francis' Marcus Dasalvia with a 30-second victory over the field at 9:50.95. The 50-free saw
Aidan Holbrook break his brother's, Zack Holbrook, 2016-mark of 22.09, with a 21.97 clocking. The sophomore would later return to wipe out Christian Foti's 2015 mark of 48.21, with a 47.66 effort.Â
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Senior co-captain
James Whaley, the school record holder in the 200-butterfly, posted a strong, early-season time and meet record of 1:56.49. That mark was .2 under the 2018 mark of teammate
Conor Mullin, who finished second in today's race.
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The 200-backstroke saw Moran go 1:54.38, nearly three seconds better than classmate
Gabriel Finch's record of 1:57.07.
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Sophomore
Daniel Hadary and Anderson battled stroke-for-stroke over the last eight lengths of the 20-length 500-freestyle, with Hadary winning by 1.8 seconds at 4:45.97, which was 3 seconds under Christian Foti's 2016 standard. The final men's mark came in the 200-breaststroke with sophomore
Jackson Madonia, lowering his own time from 2018 by two seconds to 2:11.00.
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The women's meet records came from the Terrier's Mariajose Lopez (1000-freestyle at 10:30.50); Anna Montes Deco Zaoian (200-freestyle at 1:55.01 and 200-Butterfly at 2:08.85) and Wagner's Ellie Eastwood (2:23.96).Â
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Junior
Kate Flynn was the Gaels only individual winner on the women's side, taking the 50 and 100-Free with respective times of 24.76 and 52.94.Â
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A unique multi-class quartet of Iona women took the day's final event, the 400-Freestyle relay, with freshmen
Isabella Nicholson (54.11), sophomore
Katherine Lee (54.43), senior
Simone Sturrup (55.49) and junior
Willow Lopez-Silvers (54.27) anchoring the team to a 3:38.30 win, 1.5 seconds ahead of Wagner.
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The Gaels travel to Bryant next Saturday for a 1:00 p.m. meet in Smithfield, Rhode Island.