The College of Staten Island women’s swimming and diving squad started their season off with a splash tonight with a 146-49 conference win over the Bloodhounds of John Jay College at the CSI Sports & Recreation Center. The women won their opening meet for the first time since the 2013-14 season.  The Dolphins improve to 1-0 overall and 1-0 in the CUNYAC with the win while the Bloodhounds fall to 0-2 overall and 0-2 in the CUNYAC.
 
The Dolphins wasted no time picking up a first place finish as the team of Alicia Defonte, Samantha Escobedo, Victoria Crea and Naomi Gaggi took 9 points in the 200 yard medley relay.  Gaggi followed up her first place relay performance by scoring another first place finish in the 1000 yard freestyle with a time of 12:45.69. 
 
Staten Island continued to dominate the Bloodhounds in the pool, however John Jay scored their first individual points in the 200 yard freestyle as Linwei Ma came in second place behind Ewa Wojciechowska (2:05.62) with a time of 2:29.90.   The Dolphins kept the pressure on and extended their lead even more when it came to the diving portion of the meet.  Nora Abualam took the top spot with 143.15 points and Jessica Shaw came in second with a score of 100.05.
 
The women would finish in first in every single event except for the 100 yard breaststroke where Bokey Wong would come in on top with a time of 1:24.30.  Jamilia Mambetalieva gave CSI a nice point boost by edging out Oliva Brown with a time of 7:27.91, just .6 seconds better than Brown.
 
The Dolphins would close out the meet with an impressive showing in the 200 yard freestyle relay.  Wojciechowska, Shaw, Brown and Crea took the gold medal with a time of 1:59.19.
 
CSI will return to action on Friday, November 4 where they will travel to Brooklyn, NY to take on Brooklyn College in another CUNYAC meet at 6pm.