East Meadow, NY - Sparked by a three individual gold medals and a relay win in the 400-yard Medley Relay, the Iona University Men's Swimming and Diving Team jumped out to a commanding lead after the first day of competition at the 2024 ECAC Winter Championships at the Nassau County Aquatic Center. The Iona men have 644-points, with Monmouth and LIU at 430 and 398, respectively.
The Iona women find themselves in a tight team race standing in fourth position with only 35-points separating the top four. Monmouth at 437; Siena 424 and Stony Brook at 414 stand ahead of Iona at 402 on the women's side.
The Iona men started the day with divers,
Dylan Riccio taking gold and
Joel Picard taking silver on the 3-Meter Springboard with respective totals of 240.00 and 207.70. On the women's 1-Meter Sophomore
Emma Todd placed fifth with a season best total of 194.80-points.
Graduate student
Michael Faughnan continued his assault on the MAAC and Iona record book, taking gold in the men's 500-yard Freestyle – winning by over 6 seconds - with an NCAA Championship B-standard of 4:19.35, lowering both his MAAC and school marks.
The men's 200-yard Individual Medley had another Iona 1-2 finish with Sophomore
Noah Giunta winning gold at 1:50.96 and Senior co-captain
Brian Baldwin taking silver at 1:52.32.
The men's final gold game in the sessions final event, the 400-yatd Medley Relay, where Faughnan led off with a MAAC record time of 47.22, followed by senior
Matthew Loftus breaststroke leg of 54.86;
Brian Baldwin split 49.27 Butterfly and
Kieran Egan anchored with 44.70 freestyle effort.
On the women's side the 500-Free had
Katherine Sarnes place sixth at 5:08.88. Classmate
Kate Kennedy took the consolation heat for ninth at 5:07.30, with
Anabel Huffstutler eleventh at 5:11.10.
The 200-Individual medley had Junior
Brennyn Veit place fifth at 2:09.69; Freshmen
Raegan O'Brien took the consolation heat at 2:08.89, with classmate
Hailey Baker twelfth at 2:11.91. Senior Ashley Baker was fourteenth at 2:12.23.
Graduate student
Megan Josephs placed sixth in the 50-Free at 24.16, with classmate
Julia Moser taking the consolation heat at 24.12. Nia Thomas (24.75),
Morgan Yuengling (24.90) and Benkert (25.15) placed nineteenth, twenty-first and twenty-third, respectively.
The women's 400-Medley relay quartet of O'Brien (57.52), Moser (1:03.96), Benkert (56.46) and freshmen
Mary Grace Waring (52.06) took silver at 3:50.00.
The evenings 200-Freestyle relay had the Iona women's team of Josephs (24.05), Benkert (24.31), Yuengling (23.54) and Moser (23.4) place fourth at 1:36.40. The men's quartet of Egan took silver on a judge's decision behind LIU with times of 1:21.31 and 1:21.50.
Other men's scorers in the 500-Free included Matt Woyksnar who placed fifth at 4:36.19; Ribert Heim was eleventh at 4:44.17;
Andrew Diano, twelfth at 4:44.94;
James Cash sixteenth at 4:54.15. The 200-IM had Loftus go 1:53.26 for fifth;
Elijah Decasseres was eleventh at 1:55.26;
Chase Bateman was thirteenth at 1:56.70 and
Harry Summers was eighteenth at 1:59.84.
The men's 50-Free had four Iona men in the championship final with
Kieran Egan (20.31) and Nick Patino (20.34) taking silver and bronze and
Nate Wales (20.91) and
Mikel Palaj (21.25) going 7-8, respectively.
The meet resumes Saturday with the 400-IM, 100-Butterfly, 200-Free, 100-Breaststroke, 100-Backstroke and the women's 3-M dive and men's 1-M dive.
