The College of Staten Island men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams celebrated senior night with great success, scoring a win over Lehman College at the Sports & Recreation Center. The men prevailed 139-87, lifting their overall mark to 5-3 and CUNYAC mark to 3-1, while the women scored a 146-71 win, lifting their marks to 5-5, 4-2, respectively.
The CSI women were ahead wire-to-wire in the meet. Samantha Escobedo participated in her first meet of the season, and helped score a win in the 200 Free Relay before adding wins in the 50-yard Freestyle and 100-yard Backstroke. Kelly Walsh followed with a win in the 1,000-yard Freestyle, and then Eva Wojciechowska followed suit with a race time of 2:04.79 in the 200-yard Freestyle, her first of two gold’s, as she would place first convincingly in the 500-yard Freestyle as well.
Dakota Dawkins added another highlight reel night, scoring a win in the 200-yard Individual Medley with a time of 2:31.38, and another in the 100-yard Breaststroke, 1:11.53. Later in the evening, during an exhibition time trial event, Dawkins broke the school record in the 400-yard Individual Medley, notching a stellar time of 5:30.64 in the event.
Diving was a strong suit for the Dolphins and that’s where CSI seniors shined brightest. Stephanie Collyer and Tina Chen placed one-two on the one-meter board, with Collyer coming in with a score of 243.22, winning the event by 37 points. On the three-meter platform, April Bartlett joined her senior fellow seniors to take gold with 254.92 points, followed by Collyer’s 232.95 and Chen’s 215.85.
On the men’s side the meet was close in the opening stages, as Lehman took the first two races before CSI started to settle in and grab big points. Tim Sweeney made a big opening splash, winning CSI’s first race in the 200-yard Freestyle event, breaking his own CSI record in the process with a time of 1:47.22. After Lehman scored a win in the 50-yard Freestyle, senior Danila Novikov blasted in at a time of 2:01.01 in the 200-yard Individual Medley, taking first place, and then CSI took the lead for good in diving, where CSI took the first three places with Ayman El Haddad, senior Nolan Reese and Chris Pinto.
Sweeney and Novikov added wins and a solid run by Derek Villa in the 500-yard Freestyle with a time of 5:11.65 took first again. Reese narrowly defeated teammate El Haddad on the three-meter boards, and Novikov completed a hat trick with a tight win in the 100-yard Breaststroke with a time of 1:01.28, just beating Anthony Preda’s 1:03.13.
Senior diver John Pignatelli did not participate in the meet, but fellow seniors Sergio Miranda and Nick Giasemis added 18 points in various events.
