The College of Staten Island men’s and women’s swimming & diving program took on Division II Adelphi University tonight at the CSI Sports & Rec Center in Staten Island, NY. The Dolphins fell short of victory tonight and lost 263-144 combined. The men lost an extremely close meet, 100-113 and fall to 4-4 overall while the women lost 44-150 and fall to 3-7 on the year.
The Panthers opened up the meet with a win in the 200 yard medley relay on the women’s side and took first and second to take an early 15-2 lead over the Dolphins. The women would fall further behind when Adelphi would pick up consecutive first and second place finishes in the following races.
The men opened up the meet with a second place finish in the 200 yard medley relay with a team comprised of Chris Pinto, Brandon Lei, Tommy Gaspar, and Santonio Shand for a time of 1:58.77. Derek Villa would give the Dolphins their first place finish in the very next race which was the 1000 yard freestyle where he recorded a time of 10:33.79 and picked up 9 points for the men.
Tim Sweeney would follow that first place finish up with a record shattering 200 yard freestyle with a time of 1:44.14 breaking his own record which stood at 1:47.22 and a long standing CUNYAC record.
Right before the break the women picked up some big points by Naomi Gaggi, Ewa Wojciechowska, and Samantha Escobedo when they all place third or better in their respective event.
At the diving break the men trailed Adelphi 36-49 however, they were able to make it up with supreme diving by Adil El Haddad and Tommy Gaspar who picked up a first and second place finish in the 1 meter diving. El Haddad was the only participant in the 3 meter diving event which gave the men a crucial 9 points to put them ahead 58-49.
The Adelphi women would really start to pull away at this point and never allow the Dolphins to come back into the meet. Things were different on the men’s side as the meet came down to the very last race which was the 400 yard freestyle relay.
Nicholas Defonte started the race for the men who was able to keep it within a tenth of a second behind the Adelphi squad. Brandon Lei was next into the pool and he was pitted against one of Adelphi’s best swimmers and Lei saw himself fall behind four seconds. Villa was able to narrow it down to two seconds for Sweeney but despite Sweeney’s best efforts he couldn’t close the gap and the Dolphins would go on to lose by five tenths of a second.
The Dolphins will return to action on Tuesday where they will have their final regular season meet against York College at 6:00 PM at the CSI Sports & Rec Center in Staten Island, NY.
