Bronx, NY | After one complete day of competition at the CUNYAC Swimming & Diving Championship at Lehman College, the College of Staten Island are right in the thick of things and placing good results.  The CSI men are in second place with 53 points among the five competing teams at the CUNYAC Championship, 28 points behind leader Baruch College, while two points in front of Brooklyn College.  The women are in third place with 29 points among the seven competing schools, trailing both Hunter College (81) and Baruch College (76).

A total of 10 events were held on Friday with another 18 scheduled for today at Lehman before the Championship finalizes with the final 12 events on Sunday./  

Play started with the 200-yard Freestyle Relay, where the women’s foursome of Gabriella Bartley, cecelia Mauro, Lisnette Solano and Kimberly Hernandez came in fourth overall.  The CSI men placed fourth as well with the foursome of Michael Blacharski, Trevin Robinson, Michael Sorensen and Leo Litovsky doing the honors. 

The next event was the 500-yard Freestyle.  Alicia Defonte was CSI’s top finisher on the women’s side, coming in sixth place with a time of 6:21.32.  Mauro also clocked in at 6:29.60 for eighth place.  On the men’s side, both Blacharski and Litovsky both just missed medaling.  Blacharski came in fourth place at 5:31.48, while Litovsky placed fifth at 5:37.25.

After Lisnette Solano placed sixth in the 200-yard Individual Medley with a time of 2:35.45, CSI then got their first medal performance as freshman Michael Stora won the silver medal with a time of 2:06.56 in the same event.

CSI fared even better in the next event, the 50-yard Freestyle.  Bartley put in a ninth-place finish to lead the women, and then Peter Carle came roaring in at 22.95 in the men’s race, winning by less than a tenth of a second to take the gold medal, coming in just over a second slower than the CUNYAC record.

Rounding out the day was the 400-yard Medley Relay.  CSI’s unit of Defonte, Solano, Rachel Beyer and Mauro won CSI’s first medals on the women’s side with a bronze finish of 4:44.32.  On the men’s side another bronze was won, as Litivsky, Stora, Carle, and Sami Jindyeh were on-hand to clock in at 3:51.52.