Photo Courtesy of Ramapo Athletics
The Ramapo swim teams both improved to 2-0 on the 2015-16 season with victories over Mount Saint Mary’s College on Friday.
The men’s team defeated the Knights 121-61, while the lady Roadrunners took home the victory 113-92.
“We made strides; we may not swim as fast every meet based on how we’re training, but it went well,” said head coach Gary Orr. “All I ask is that they do the little things right.”
“Going into this meet, we knew we were going to do well,” said junior RJ Carillo. “We doubled their team in size, there wasn’t as much competition as there would be for a conference rival. We really tried to spread out our team and put people in events that they might not do at a bigger meet just to see if they would do well.”
Carillo was one-fourth of the victorious 200-yard medley relay, along with Andrew Ramos, Jose Alferez, and Charlie May, who finished the race in 1:41.25.
“A win on top of that felt really good because it shows us how good we will be against other teams,” said Carillo.
Charlie May took home the top spot in the 50-yard freestyle, clocking in at 23.67. Will Mayer and Andrew Caetano finished second and third at 29.93 and 24.77, respectively.
In the 1,000-yard freestyle medley, Aspen-Jade Tucker won the race at 10:46.52, followed by second-place-finisher Nicholas Markwell (11:02.73) and third-place-finisher Brian Henningsen (11:07.66).
Peter Kellner, Jesse Smith, and Chaz Cella racked up the top three spots in the 200-yard freestyle, finishing at 1:53.28, 1:55.05, and 1:55.55, respectively.
Jesse Smith and Kyle Jackson took home the top two spots in the 100-yard butterfly, while Ramos and Julian Giglio finished first and second in the 100-yard freestyle.
The final men’s victory came in the 100-yard backstroke, where Matt Stenger, Nicholas Markwell, and Daniel Drozdewicz took home the top three spots.
As for the women, Veronica Drozdewicz won both the 1,000-yard freestyle (11:40.68) and the 500-yard freestyle (5:41.76).
“She’s a bulldog,” said head coach Gary Orr. “She’ll do what we ask; she’s going to have a great career. All of the freshmen girls will shine.”
Julia Housel, Brenda Arthur, Maggie Herbert, and Sarah Stacey won the 200-yard medley relay in 1:54.49.
Herbert and Stacey finished first and second in the 200-yard freestyle with times of 2:01.69 and 2:06.16 while Arthur (26.36) and Caitlin Bach (24.48) finished in first and second place respectively in the 50-yard freestyle.
The men and women will have their next four meets on the road before returning to Ramapo in January.
Both teams will be back in action on Saturday when they travel to SUNY New Paltz.
The women have never beat New Paltz, but Orr believes the lady Roadrunners are up to the challenge.
“They beat Montclair and Rowan [for the first time] last year,” said Orr. Last time the women faces SUNY New Paltz, they lost three races by a tenth of a second.
rmorik@ramapo.edu
