Bronx, NY | The College of Staten Island men’s and women’s swimming & diving teams are affixed in their positions after two days of the CUNYAC Championship Meet held at Lehman College this weekend.  After 18 events on Saturday, CSI remains in second place on the men’s side while the women are locked into the third place position.

The CSI men currently have 141 total points, trailing Baruch College, who sit in first with 205 points, and ahead of Brooklyn College with 110 points.  The CSI women have 78 points, and trail both Baruch (187) and Hunter College (182).

On Saturday, one of the biggest focuses was diving and CSI was the top team on the boards, sweeping all of the medals.  In one-meter competition, Jen Basini and Alyssa Dunn went head-to-head, and there, Basini took the first gold medal of her career with a score of 176.30, edging out Dunn, who took silver, who scored 165.5.  On the men’s one-meter platform, Xavier Nicholson scored 215.25 points to take top honors, while freshman teammate Thomas Bridgeman scored 167.5 to take the silver.  When the men made their way up to the three-meter boards, it was Nicholson and Bridgeman going one-two again.  Nicholson turned in a score of 185.15 to win the event, with Bridgeman scoring 167.3 to once again take silver.

CSI had some other healthy performances that earned medals on Saturday.  Kicking things off, the foursome of Alicia Defonte, Lisnette Solano, Rachel Beyer and Gabriella Bartley earned a bronze medal in the 200-yard Medley Relay with a time of 2:05.13, and the CSi men’s team also took the bronze in the same event with Leo Litivsky, Michael Stora, Peter Carle and Sami Jindyeh at 1:43.29.

In individual events, Carle continued his great run at the Championship, earning a silver medal in the 100-yard Butterfly with a time of 55.62, falling short of the gold medal by less than three-tenths of a second.  Jindyeh then won his first individual medal, with a silver finish in the 200-yard Freestyle, turning in a time of 1:56.91.  Keeping the silver streak going, Stora took his second-place finish in the next event, the 100-yard Breaststroke, at 1:00.10.

The final event of the day, minus diving, was the 800-yard Freestyle Relay.  Again the CSI women took the bronze as Defonte, Solano, Beyer and Cecelia Mauro came in at 9:32.89.  In the men’s race, CSI took second place with a time of 7:46.60 by foursome Carle, Michael Blacharski, Jindyeh, and Stora.

The CUNYAC Championship will conclude today at Lehman College.