Behind the strength of a strong back 100-yards, graduate student Michael Faughnan pulled ahead of Queens University's Daniel Meszaros to win his and Iona's first ever National title and gold in the 200-yard Freestyle.
 
Faughnan posted a time of 1:34.85 to win by .64 on the second day of competition of at the National Invitational Championship in Ocala, Florida. The meet - held at the Florida Aquatic Swim Center - has 58 teams from across the nation in the 3-day meet sponsored by the College Swim Coaches Association of America.
 
"This was a tremendous effort by Michael tonight in a stacked field," noted Coach Nick Cavataro. "Michael stayed in control and was able to accelerate through the back end to win."
 
Faughnan, later returned to take bronze in the 100-yard Backstroke at 46.68, behind Grand Canyon's Alex Volkov (46.25) and Kentucky's Devin Naoroz (46.46).
 
In other individual action, sophomore Noah Giunta took twentieth in the 400-yard Individual Medley at 4:07.84 after a preliminary season best effort of 4:02.66.
 
Relay action saw the quartet of Faughnan (Backstroke, 22.10); Matthew Loftus (Breaststroke, 24.53); Brian Baldwin (Butterfly, 22.52); and Nick Patino (Freestyle, 20.35) place seventeenth in the 200-yard Medley Relay at 1:29.50.
 
The 800-yard Freestyle Relay team of Harry Platt (1:40.78); Liam Pyatt (1:42.61); Andrew Diano (1:43.25) and Loftus (1:42.44) combined for 6:49.08 time and nineteenth place.
 
The two-day point total finds the Iona men in twelfth place with 168-points, 30 behind Duke. Ohio State, queens and Kentucky lead the meet.
 
Then meet concludes Saturday with the 100-IM, 200-Back, 100-Free, 200-Breast, 200-Butterfly, 1650-Free and 400-Free Relay.
 
Full Results can be found at https://www.cscaa.org/nic with a live stream athttps://www.youtube.com/@FASTFlorida/streams