JERSEY CITY, NJ – The Saint Peter's men's swimming and diving team defeated Pace University, 108-89 on Saturday afternoon in Jersey City in the home opener, to give first year head coach Mark Kretzer his first career victory.
"We couldn't have asked for a better way to have our first home meet of the season," explained Kretzer. "We started the meet off with a lot of energy fed off of our large home crowd. This home pool energy is what we have been missing in our away meets so far this season."
The men got things going in their opening event, the 200 medley relay, where the quadruplet of Michael Spark, Igal Oren, Chad Williams, and Eliran Epshtein recorded a season-best time of 1:36.17 en route to a victory. The men would go on to take first place in the 200 free (Thomas Calloni, 1:46.48), the 200 IM (Oren, 2:02.63), the 100 butterfly (Diego Rueda, 57.88), the 100 free (Epshtein, 48.55), the 500 free (Nicholas Riepe, 4:46.67) the 100 breaststroke (Hunter Cooney, 1:03.92) and cap off the victory in the meets final event, the 400 free relay (Epshtein, Calloni, Daniel Gayetsky, and Riepe, 3:15.03).
"The medley relay team started off with not just a win, but a season best time, which catapulted us with some great momentum for the first half of the meet," added Kretzer. "We had some great individual wins from junior Thomas Calloni, seniors Igal Oren, Eliran Ephstein, Nick Riepe, and freshman Hunter Cooney. Freshman Michael Spark contributed two closely contested 2nd place finished for the Men's side. The team capped off an excellent win with a victory in the 400 freestyle relay."
The women's swimming team was defeated by Pace University 123-64 but had some strong individual performances. Junior Karen Castaneda earned individual wins in the 200 free (2:00.75) and the 500 free (5:24.55) where she finished over 10 seconds faster than the runner up. Castaneda was also one fourth of the 400 free relay team along with Ericka Leynes, Brianni Thomas, and Alexandria Thomas, which earned a top finish with a time of 4:24.10. Angel Gabinete also earned a top finish for the women in the 100 breaststroke, with a time of 1:42.51.
"On the woman's side, the team was flying high with our strengthened roster," said Kretzer. "Junior captain Karen Castaneda won her two individual events convincingly, proving that the ladies have some fight in them against our local competition. All of our other athletes on the women's side contributed personal best performances throughout the meet, showing great promise for our woman's team for the future."
Kretzer noted, "the team is looking forward to our winter training, which will take place in Puerto Rico at the University of Puerto Rico Mayaguez, from January 3 to 8."
Saint Peter's concludes its 2016 calendar year and will not be back in the water until January 13, when the team has a meet at Colgate University. The meet time is set to begin at 1:00 p.m.
Meet Results
