BUFFALO, NY - The second day of competition at the 2023 Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Swimming and Diving Championships in Buffalo, NY saw the Iona women slip to fourth place and the Iona men remain in sixth position with two days remaining.

CURRENT STANDINGS

Fairfield University (228-points) and Niagara University (193) are 1-2, with Marist (174), Iona (166) and Canisius (160) bunched in the middle of the standings.
 
The men's race has defending champion Rider (253) in the lead with Niagara (229) and Marist (208.5) in the 2-3 spots. Fairfield (192), Canisius (151) and Iona (132) are in the middle positions.

Faughnan's Record Setting Performance

However, the story of the meet was the electrifying performance of Iona Junior, Michael Faughnan, who went into the evening final of the 500-yard Freestyle as the third seed and took command from the dive and led for the entire 20-lengths on the way to a new MAAC, Iona school and NCAA Championship B standard time of 4:20.35. The time smashed the 2015 MAAC mark of Rider's Zachary Molloy of 4:22.74 and finished ahead of defending champion Joseph Stewart of Fairfield, who took silver at 4:27.55. Faughnan becomes the first Iona male swimmer to achieve an NCAA Division I Championship standard.

Day 2 SUMMARY

In the same event, training partner and freshmen Matthew Woyksnar of Niagara Falls, took eleventh with a best time of 4:37.36, for number seven all time at Iona.
 
The women's 500-Free had senior Tristan Urso (5:10.78) and Hannah Forbes (5:17.58) finish eleventh and sixteenth, respectively.
 
The 200-Individual Medley saw another pair of Iona School records as graduate student Daniel Hadary, broke the 2020 mark of Jackson Madonia by .33, with a preliminary time of 1:50.47. In the final – with less than 1.5 seconds separating the field, Hadary took eighth 1:50.70.
 
The next women's race saw freshmen Victoria Novinskiy lower her own school mark set in December of 2:05.91, to 2:04.81 taking silver for her first MAAC individual medal after a relay gold in the Wednesday 200 Medley. In the same event, seniors Luisa Da Silveira and Taylor Spillman took thirteenth and fifteenth with respective times of 2:10.00 and 2:10.75.
 
The 50-yard Freestyle for women saw Julia Moser (23.63) and Isabella Nicholson (23.78) post career best efforts for third and fifth place in the championship heat. The consolation heat had Megan Josephs (24.29) and Ashley Benkert (24.67) place fourteenth and sixteenth.
 
The men's 50-Free race had freshmen Mikel Palaj come from sixteenth to win the consolation final, with the 4th best time in Iona history at 20.77.
 
The day's final two races – the 200-yard Freestyle Relay, proved exciting as the women's quartet of Nicholson (23.88), Josephs (24.04), Benkert (23.68) and Moser (23,37) combined to lower the 2020 school record by .05 to 1:34.95 for a silver medal.
 
Then the men's race had Faughnan (20.70), Palaj (20.45), Liam Pyatt (20.86) and Hadary (20.41) combine to take fifth at 1:22.42.

Up Next

The meet continues Friday with action in the 100-Fly, 400-IM, 200-Free, 100-Breast and 100-Back.

SOCIAL MEDIA