Contact: Jeff Sattora
Cleveland, Ohio- The Cleveland State Vikings' men's swimming team went a perfect 4-0 Tuesday night, taking home big victories at the Cleveland College Dual Meet Invitational at Cleveland State. The Vikings took down Canisius, Case Western, John Carroll, and Notre Dame (Ohio).
While multiple CSU swimmers were able to pick up wins, a familiar group led the way in the victory column, with a variety of swimmers swimming very well and bringing home strong performances.
Senior Mark De Swardt led the way for the Vikings, picking up a team high three victories, going a perfect three for three on the night. De Swardt first took home a win in the 1,000 freestyle in dominating fashion by 18 seconds (9:45.22), he then went on to win the 200 IM (1:55.84), and 500 freestyle (4:41.40).
Coming off impressive performances at the AT@T Winter National Championships, junior Al Shillito and and senior Berry Thompsonalso had big meets picking up three wins each for CSU.
Shillito was able to go a perfect three for three, with two individual wins and one relay win. In the relay he teamed up with Nathan Grant, Justin Kermack, and Berry Thompson to take home first place in the 200 medley relay (1:32.71). Individually he was victorious in the 200 freestyle (1:41.81), and 100 freestyle (46.44).
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Thompson was the third three time winner on the evening for CSU, picking up a second relay win in the 200 freestyle relay teaming up with Nathan Grant, Martin Persson, and Alex Lewis (1:23.92), and also winning individually in the 50 yard freestyle (20.73).
Head Coach Wally Morton was mentioned all three of those swimmers (De Swart, Shillito, and Thompson) as standouts in the meet, posting solid times in both their regular events, and even a few they don't normally swim in.
The Vikings will be off from competition for just about a month following the meet tonight, and Morton is happy where the team is at at this point in the season.
"I think we've had a really successful year, we've had an outstanding fall semester and I'm really excited," Morton said. "The team has been really solid and has been training at a high level, if we win the practices we'll do well at the meets."
The team will be back in the pool at the start of the New Year, January 5th at the Bob Mowerson College Forum meet in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
