Contact: Jeff Sattora
St Bonaventure, NY- The Cleveland State Vikings' men's swimming and diving team bounced back from a tie last weekend at Miami (Ohio) to pick up a win Saturday, taking down St. Bonaventure on the road 132-111. The win moved the team to 6-1-1 on the season.
Junior Al Shillito helped lead the way for CSU, picking up one individual win, as one as one relay win. Shillito swam the opening leg of the winning 400-yard medley teaming up with Brian Ferro,Alex Lewis, and Berry Thompson to pick up a 3:26.26 winning time. On top of the relay win, he also had a record setting day on his own. The junior's 200 backstroke time of 1:50.69 set a pool record in the Bonaventure pool. He earned the record-setting win by almost two seconds.
"Al Shillito had a fantastic meet," said Head Coach Wally Morton on the junior. "It's really difficult to set a pool record this early in the season."
Even with Shillito setting the pool record and picking up the two wins, for Morton the victory was a total team effort.
"There was no one person, it was a total team effort," said Head Coach Wally Morton on the men's win. "I was really pleased the way they raced each other."
"They're (St. Bonaventure) a quality program, I thought it was an outstanding effort," he added. "We won a lot of close races, and if we hadn't we would have lost the meet. It was a very tough meet to win."
Other Vikings outside of Shillito who stepped up and picked up wins swimming well all day long. Senior Berry Thompson was one of those Vikings with two relay wins, in the 400-yard freestyle relay (3:10.83), and 400-yard medley relay (3:26.26). Thompson outlasted one of the Bonnies top swimmers, Jimmy Martin, in the fourth leg of medley relay to earn one of those close CSU wins by .09 seconds.
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Other swimmers who picked up individual victories included senior Mark De Swardt in the 1,000 freestyle (9:40.74), Justin Hill in the 50-yard freestyle (21.01), Justin Kermack in the 200 butterfly (1:53.27), and Brian Ferro in the 200 breaststroke (2:09.21).
CSU will be back in the pool next weekend as they get ready to host the CSU Viking Invitational. The invitational will take place over three days, beginning next Friday at 9:00 a.m. at the Robert F. Busbey Natatorium on the Cleveland State campus.
