Jan. 24, 2009
Final Stats
CLEVELAND, Ohio - -
Contact: Julie Farr DeLima
The Cleveland State University men's swimming and diving teams hosted Wright State in the final home meet of the season on Saturday, Jan. 24. The men finished with wins in eight events, 19 new team or personal best times of the season, one school record and one Horizon League record in a 133-108 win.
The victory, which improved the CSU men to 9-4 in dual meets, also served as the final home meet for seniors Volkmar Baur, Marko Milenkovic and Nedim Nisic.
"Top to bottom we had some great efforts," head coach Wally Morton said. "The best thing about today is that we weren't the men's team and the women's team, we were the Cleveland State University Swimming and Diving Team. Even in our loss in the 200 free and the 400 free relay we still performed at a very high level."
There were several great accomplishments on the day, but none more impressive than what Mark deSwardt did to the 1,000 freestyle record. The freshman won the event in 9:05.64, nearly 13 seconds faster than his previous best time and 11 seconds ahead of the previous record of 9:16.53 set by Henk Markgraaff in 1999. The mark is also a Horizon League record, breaking the mark of 9:17.93 set by CSU's Bjorn Schantz in 2006.
"That was the swim of all dual meets in the history of both Fenn College and Cleveland State," Morton said. "Mark took on a world-class athlete and shattered his time. He also swam his best times in dual competition in both the 200 fly and 500 free to become a triple winner today."
The Vikings kicked off the meet with a win in the 400 medley relay, as Todd Winchell, Milenkovic, Stephen Grove and Nisic finished in 3:24.99. In the next event, deSwardt broke the school record and led the Vikings to a 1-2-3 finish with all three times under the 10-minute mark. Pieter Ritz finished second in 9;52.47, his best time of the year, and Colin Hanner finished in 9:59.65 for a season-best time and third place overall. It was the first time that Ritz and Hanner had gone under 10 minutes this season.
In the 200 freestyle, Winchell led the Vikings with a third-place finish (1:43.63) while Derek Butts picked up his best time of the season (1:54.65) in a sixth-place finish. Grove took second in the 50 free with a time of 21.00 and then CSU rattled off six straight wins.
Jakub Dobies swam the team's (and his) best time of the season, 1:53.55, to win the 200 IM while Milenkovic(1:53.76, 2nd) and Baur (2:03.61) both recorded their best times of the season.
deSwardt used his second win, the 200 fly, to swim the fourth-fastest time in school history (1:50.25) and the team's best time of the season. Zvonimir Androic (1:54.25, 2nd) and Baur (2:00.38, 4th) also had their best times of the year during the race.
In the 100 free, Dobies led a trio of Viking swimmers to post their best times of the season. Dobies swam and team and personal best this season (45.50) for the win, followed by Mike Marsico (47.20, 4th) and Keith Everhart (47.34, 5th).
Hanner won the 200 back in 1:54.43 and Nisic finished third with his best time of the year (1:57.78). In the 500 free, deSwardt and Ritz placed 1-2 in 4:28.98 and 4:43.02, respectively.
During the final individual event of the day, Milenkovic swam the seventh-fastest time in school history to win the 200 breast (2:04.97), his fastest and the team's fastest this year. Deni Gasparin finished second (2:07.10).
Despite a second-place finish in the 400 free relay, Nisic swam a personal best in the leadoff leg (47.08) and along with Grove, Winchell and Marsico swam CSU's fastest time this season (3:05.15). In CSU's other relay, Travis Lombardozzi led off the race with his best time of the year in the 100 free (49.15).
In the diving portion of the event, Matt DiMasso recorded a third-place finish in the 3-meter competition with his best score of the season 242.85). He also finished fourth in the 1-meter dive with 245.70 points.
The Vikings have an off week before returning to action Feb. 6-7. The team travels to Valparaiso on Feb. 6 and competes at Chicago on Feb. 7.
