Iona vs Monmouth
- Saturday, November 5, 2022
- New Rochelle, N.Y.
- SCY (25 yards)
- Results
- Team Scores
- Women: Iona 204, Monmouth 58
- Men: Iona 156.5, Monmouth 123.5
Courtesy: Iona Athletics
NEW ROCHELLE, NY – The Hynes Center Pool, with a near capacity crowd, reached a fever pitch in nearly everyone of the 30 events today, as the Iona swimming and diving team hosted now ex-Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference member and rival, Monmouth University as the Gaels took both meets.
FINAL SCORES
The two teams have traded wins back and forth over the past two seasons, and have developed many individual rivalries as well. However, Iona prevailed today on the women’s side 204-58 and battled to a 156.50-123.50 win on the men’s side of the score sheet. The win raises the women’s mark to 6-1 on the season and the men climb to 3-3.
MEET SUMMARY
The Iona women dominated from the opening, taking the 200-yard medley relay with a season best, 1:45.56 as the quartet of Victoria Novinskiy, Julia Moser, Ashley Benkert and Megan Josephs won by nearly 5 seconds.
The Iona men’s team of Brian Baldwin, Emil Bajramovic, Mikel Palaj and Chase Bateman fell short by .56 to a stacked Monmouth team. However, the 1000-Free saw freshmen Katherine Sarnes post the second fastest time in Iona history at 10:27.59, with Tristan Urso second at 10:35.77. Junior Michael Faughnan, took the 1000-Free on the men’s time at 9:26.42, with freshmen Michael Woyksnar third at 9:39.28.
The Iona women had two school records on the day with the first coming in the 200-Freestyle as Senior Isabella Nicholson lowered her own school mark by nearly a second to 1:51.39, leading a 1-2-3 finish with Elisa Vaher (1:58.45) and Meghan Pattison (1:59.00) following.
Faughnan, coming out immediately out of the 1000-Free, took the 200-Free by 2.2 seconds at 1:41.32, with Chase Bateman taking third in a season best at 1:45.90.
“The relay, Sarnes, Nicholson and Faughnan, really set a great tone for our team today right at the start, said Nick Cavatoro. “To have good sprint relays, then have the strong 1000 races and then put the 200’s on top, our group was fired-up.”
The fastest swimming continued as freshmen Victoria Novinskiy posted a school record in the 100-Backstroke at 57.22, with the former record holder Luiza Da Silveira, in third with a season best at 58.24, followed by Grace Curry at 58.90.
The 2022 MAAC MVP, Callan Smith took the 100-Back at 51.09, despite season best times from Dan Hadary (51.48) and Brian Baldwin (52.91).
The defending MAAC Champion in the 100-Breast, coming off of summer should surgery, continued to improve, leading a 1-2-3 finish in the 100-Breast at 1:05.58, with Megan Josephs (1:07.21) and Brennyn Veit (1:09.08) right behind.
The men’s race saw a pair of season best efforts from Bajramovic at 57.15 and Matthew Loftus at 58.87 for a 1-2 placing.
The 200-yard butterfly had Taylor Spillman record a season best at 2:09.14, with teammate Ashley Benkert two clicks behind at 2:09.30 for a 1-2 Iona finish. David Son continued his strong butterfly swimming with a win at 1:56.03.
The 50-yard Freestyle saw Nicholson win the second of her three races on the day with a season best of 23.93. Freshman Erin Mckinney, took third at 25.22, with Lily Devaney fourth at 25.44. The men’s race saw the season debut of freshmen Mikel Palaj, who took second with a team leading time of 21.62.
Ione freshmen Diver Dylan Riccio, picked up big points winning the 1-Meter and 3-M events uncontested.
Nicholson took the 100-Free at 51.77, with McKinney posting a season best 54.43. Sophomore Chase Bateman had a season best of 47.85 in a second place effort on the men’s side.
Novinskiy took the second of her wins, touching first in the 200-Back at 2:04.14, with Da Silveira and Curry in 2-3 with times of 2:07.66 and 2:09.48, respectively.
Hadary had a lifetime best effort in the 200-back by over 4 seconds at 1:52.89, which is number 4 all time for Iona, but fell short of MVP Smith by .9.
Josephs had a career best of 2:25.36 in the 200-Breaststroke win with Brennyn Veit second at 2:27.43. Bajramovic (2:08.88) and Loftus (2:13.67) went 1-2 in the men’s 200-breast.
Sarnes (5:08.62), Urso (5;10.60) and Vaher (5:20.43) all had season best efforts in the 1-2-3 sweep of the 500-Free, Faughnan took his third race of the day in the Men’s 500-Fere at 4:32.03, with Matthew Woyksnar posting a season best of 4:41.13 finishing third.
Benkert took the 100-Butterfly at 57.31, with Palaj missing his first college win in the men’s race by 48 at 51.94.
Freshmen Novinskiy (2L07.35) and Veit (2:13.32) took 1-2 in the Women’s 200m-Individual Medley.
The men’s 200-IM race was what Coach Cavataro called, “the race of the day!”. Fifth-year senior Daniel Hadary went head to head with the defending MAAC MVP Callan Smith for the third time, and came away with a stunning back-half win at 1:54.42 to win by 3.53. “Dan just was not going to be denied, he had a career best breaststroke leg and out-split Smith by 4 seconds at the 100-yard mark to win, added Cavatoro. “It was such a competitive effort.”
Both the women’s and men’s 400-yard freestyle relays touched first, with the women’s quartet of Josephs (55.86), Moser (53.17), Benkert (53.38) and Nicholson (51.71) winning at 3:34.12. The Iona men had Palaj (48.23), Blake Alford (47,26), Robert Heim (47.82) and Faughnan (44.63) go a season best of 3:07.94.
Interestingly the Iona coaches held Daniel Hadary out of the 400-Free Relay where he holds the school’s fastest “split ever” of 44.72 dating back to 2020, until Faughnan’s 44.63 leg. “The 200-IM was such a huge win and swim for Dan and I wanted to end on that high note,” commented Cavataro, “but the thought of a pair of 44+ in a relay next time is very exciting.”
UP NEXT
Iona travels to New Haven next Saturday (Nov. 12) to face Southern Connecticut State University.
Courtesy: Monmouth Athletics
NEW ROCHELLE, NY – The Monmouth University men’s and women’s swimming teams dropped their non-conference dual meets to Iona on Saturday afternoon at Hynes Center Pool.
The men’s team lost to the Gaels, 156.5-123.5, while the women’s final total was 204-58.
Blake Reynolds and Callan Smith each won two races, while Thomas Svane-From earned one win for Monmouth.
MEET NOTES
– Monmouth’s men won the 200-yard medley relay as Callan Smith, Sean Cook, Blake Reynolds and Owen Dyson combined for a time of 1:33.57.
– Callan Smith took the top spots in the 100 back (51.09) and 200 back (1:51.90). Smith now has seven wins this year and 80 for his career.
– Blake Reynolds touched the wall first in 21.17 to win the 50-yard freestyle. Reynolds also won the 100-yard butterfly in 51.46. Reynolds increased his career victory total to 28 career victory and has five wins this season.
– Thomas Svane-From placed first in the 100-yard freestyle, winning in 47.78. Svane-From won his first race of the season and 10th of his career.
UP NEXT
The Hawks wrap up the fall semester dual meet season when they travel to take on Manhattan next Saturday, November 12 at 12 p.m.
