Staten Island, NY | The College of Staten Island Men's & Women's Swimming & Diving teams returned to the pool for the first time in over a month and to kick off the 2020 new year, and did so win an emphatic win on both ends against visiting Sarah Lawrence College.  The CSI men scored a 118-66 win over the Gryphons, while the women scored a similar, 117-59, result.  The CSI men improved to 5-2 overall while the women improved to 5-3.

WOMEN'S MEET
The Sarah Lawrence starting unit in the 200-yard Medley Relay started with a win, but as an exhibition team, CSI was able to take the points, and that CSI the rest of the way.  Melissa Poggioli and Cecelia Mauro came right out and took first and second in the 1000-yard Freestyle uncontested, and then right after, in the 200-yard Freestyle, Kathleen Bridgman, at 2:18.51, and Gabriella Bartley, at 2:33.19, did the same, opening up CSI's lead to 37-0 after three events.

Mariya Aloykhina scored a first place finish in the 50-yard Freestyle with a time of 29.87, just narrowly beating teammate Bridget Mulvey.  CSI's string of first-place points, stopped in the 200-yard Individual Medley, as Sabella Vaserman took second in the event, but CSI got back in the win column with an uncontested Jen Basini in the one-meter diving competition.  After Vaserman posted another second-place faring in the 100-yard Butterfly, CSI's Bartley scored first in the 100-yard Freestyle, beating teammate Victoria Musarella by just over a second.  Another uncontested event saw Bridgman take first at 1:13.98, and Djulieta Gatman second in the 100-yard Backstroke, at 1:21.39.

Coming down the home stretch, Poggioli and Mauro took second and third in the 500-yard Freestyle, and after that, Lisnette Solano took second in the 100-yard Breaststroke , followed by Sahra Banja's fourth-place finish.  To finish up, SLC took first in the 200-yard Freestyle as Drew Lei Alerta, Audrey Szendeffy, Lillian Eaton, and Katherine McKane scored a 1:55.94 finish there.

MEN'S MEET
CSI had equal success right from the get-go, taking both first and second place in the 200-yard Medley Relay to score a quick, 15-0, lead.  Even after SLC scored an uncontested win by Chaz Stafford in the 1,000-yard Freestyle, CSI got back in the win column as Michael Blacharski won the 200-yard Freestyle with a time of 2:01.55, as Jason Torchio took the bronze as well with 2:09.92.  CSI followed with second, third and fourth-place finishes from Peter Carle, Chris Ivanov, and Ilir Mujaj in the 50-yard Freestyle, piling on the points.  After Michael Stora's second-place finish in the 200-yard Individual Medley, CSI scored major points when both Xavier Nicholson and Thomas Bridgman scored 1-2 in diving on both the one-meter and three-meter boards, good for a whopping 26 points.

CSI started accumulating more points when Carle posted a 57.87 win in the 100-yard Butterfly, and in the next event, the 100-yard Freestyle, Sami Jindyeh scored the top mark with a time of 53.35, followed by Chris Ivanov's time of 53.60 and Jason Torchio's third-place time of 58.39.  From there, CSI took an uncontested win by Blacharski in the 500-yard Freestyle with a time of 5:46.43, and then Stora put up a win in the 100-yard Breaststroke with a time of 1:02.46, a race where Mujaj scored third place.

To finish the meet, SLC took the win in the 200-yard Freestyle Relay, as the team of Miles Washington, Roshandel, Bryce Williams, and Stafford, came in at 1:38.50, ahead of CSI's team of Bridgman, Jindyeh, Michael Sorensen, and Tom Smith's time of 1:43.95.

Now armed with their first win of 2020, CSI will look to stay hot, when they travel to Kean University to take on the Cougars in Union, NJ, on Monday, at 5pm.  It will be a women's only meet.  The men will next be in action on Wednesday, January 15, when they host Brooklyn College, for a 5pm showdown.