NEW ROCHELLE, NY - The Hynes Center Pool, with a near capacity crowd, reached a fever pitch in nearly everyone of the 30 events today, as the Iona swimming and diving team hosted now ex-Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference member and rival, Monmouth University as the Gaels took both meets.
Final Scores
The two teams have traded wins back and forth over the past two seasons, and have developed many individual rivalries as well. However, Iona prevailed today on the women's side 204-58 and battled to a 156.50-123.50 win on the men's side of the score sheet. The win raises the women's mark to 6-1 on the season and the men climb to 3-3.
Meet Summary
The Iona women dominated from the opening, taking the 200-yard medley relay with a season best, 1:45.56 as the quartet of
Victoria Novinskiy,
Julia Moser,
Ashley Benkert and
Megan Josephs won by nearly 5 seconds.
The Iona men's team of
Brian Baldwin,
Emil Bajramovic,
Mikel Palaj and
Chase Bateman fell short by .56 to a stacked Monmouth team. However, the 1000-Free saw freshmen
Katherine Sarnes post the second fastest time in Iona history at 10:27.59, with
Tristan Urso second at 10:35.77. Junior
Michael Faughnan, took the 1000-Free on the men's time at 9:26.42, with freshmen Michael Woyksnar third at 9:39.28.
The Iona women had two school records on the day with the first coming in the 200-Freestyle as Senior
Isabella Nicholson lowered her own school mark by nearly a second to 1:51.39, leading a 1-2-3 finish with
Elisa Vaher (1:58.45) and
Meghan Pattison (1:59.00) following.
Faughnan, coming out immediately out of the 1000-Free, took the 200-Free by 2.2 seconds at 1:41.32, with
Chase Bateman taking third in a season best at 1:45.90.
"The relay, Sarnes, Nicholson and Faughnan, really set a great tone for our team today right at the start, said Nick Cavatoro. "To have good sprint relays, then have the strong 1000 races and then put the 200's on top, our group was fired-up."
The fastest swimming continued as freshmen
Victoria Novinskiy posted a school record in the 100-Backstroke at 57.22, with the former record holder
Luiza Da Silveira, in third with a season best at 58.24, followed by
Grace Curry at 58.90.
The 2022 MAAC MVP, Callan Smith took the 100-Back at 51.09, despite season best times from Dan Hadary (51.48) and
Brian Baldwin (52.91).
The defending MAAC Champion in the 100-Breast, coming off of summer should surgery, continued to improve, leading a 1-2-3 finish in the 100-Breast at 1:05.58, with
Megan Josephs (1:07.21) and
Brennyn Veit (1:09.08) right behind.
The men's race saw a pair of season best efforts from Bajramovic at 57.15 and
Matthew Loftus at 58.87 for a 1-2 placing.
The 200-yard butterfly had
Taylor Spillman record a season best at 2:09.14, with teammate
Ashley Benkert two clicks behind at 2:09.30 for a 1-2 Iona finish.
David Son continued his strong butterfly swimming with a win at 1:56.03.
The 50-yard Freestyle saw Nicholson win the second of her three races on the day with a season best of 23.93. Freshman
Erin Mckinney, took third at 25.22, with
Lily Devaney fourth at 25.44. The men's race saw the season debut of freshmen
Mikel Palaj, who took second with a team leading time of 21.62.
Ione freshmen Diver
Dylan Riccio, picked up big points winning the 1-Meter and 3-M events uncontested.
Nicholson took the 100-Free at 51.77, with McKinney posting a season best 54.43. Sophomore
Chase Bateman had a season best of 47.85 in a second place effort on the men's side.
Novinskiy took the second of her wins, touching first in the 200-Back at 2:04.14, with Da Silveira and Curry in 2-3 with times of 2:07.66 and 2:09.48, respectively.
Hadary had a lifetime best effort in the 200-back by over 4 seconds at 1:52.89, which is number 4 all time for Iona, but fell short of MVP Smith by .9.
Josephs had a career best of 2:25.36 in the 200-Breaststroke win with
Brennyn Veit second at 2:27.43. Bajramovic (2:08.88) and Loftus (2:13.67) went 1-2 in the men's 200-breast.
Sarnes (5:08.62), Urso (5;10.60) and Vaher (5:20.43) all had season best efforts in the 1-2-3 sweep of the 500-Free, Faughnan took his third race of the day in the Men's 500-Fere at 4:32.03, with
Matthew Woyksnar posting a season best of 4:41.13 finishing third.
Benkert took the 100-Butterfly at 57.31, with Palaj missing his first college win in the men's race by 48 at 51.94.
Freshmen Novinskiy (2L07.35) and Veit (2:13.32) took 1-2 in the Women's 200m-Individual Medley.
The men's 200-IM race was what Coach Cavataro called, "the race of the day!". Fifth-year senior
Daniel Hadary went head to head with the defending MAAC MVP Callan Smith for the third time, and came away with a stunning back-half win at 1:54.42 to win by 3.53. "Dan just was not going to be denied, he had a career best breaststroke leg and out-split Smith by 4 seconds at the 100-yard mark to win, added Cavatoro. "It was such a competitive effort."
Both the women's and men's 400-yard freestyle relays touched first, with the women's quartet of Josephs (55.86), Moser (53.17), Benkert (53.38) and Nicholson (51.71) winning at 3:34.12. The Iona men had Palaj (48.23),
Blake Alford (47,26),
Robert Heim (47.82) and Faughnan (44.63) go a season best of 3:07.94.
Interestingly the Iona coaches held
Daniel Hadary out of the 400-Free Relay where he holds the school's fastest "split ever" of 44.72 dating back to 2020, until Faughnan's 44.63 leg. "The 200-IM was such a huge win and swim for Dan and I wanted to end on that high note," commented Cavataro, "but the thought of a pair of 44+ in a relay next time is very exciting."
Up Next
Iona travels to New Haven next Saturday (Nov. 12) to face Southern Connecticut State University .
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