Contact: Jeff Sattora
CLEVELAND, OH- The Cleveland State Vikings men's swimming and diving team knew going into the weekend that bouncing back Saturday at home after a late meet on the road would be a challenge.
Fortunately for CSU, they rose to that challenge taking down both Niagara University (172-65) and Gannon University (186-48).
Head Coach Wally Morton knew that having a second meet at home less than 24 hours after taking on top flight competition in the Ohio State tri-meet on the road Friday night would be difficult, but he was extremely happy with the way the team responded and ended the weekend on a high note.
"We swam unbelievably well under the circumstances, we improved all of our times from last night," said Morton on the team's effort today." It was a busy weekend, it was a grueling weekend, we're beat up but we're hanging in their tough."
Multiple swimmers on the men's side were able to embody that toughness and put forth impressive efforts in the home meet.
Senior Mark De Swardt helped lead the way for the Vikings, as he finished in the top three of all his events on the day. De Swardt, who missed all last season due to injury is really starting to round back into form for the Vikings. He ended the day with two wins, including the 1,000 freestyle, which we won by 16 seconds in 9:41.57 and the 500 freestyle which he won by six seconds in 4:40.36. He also finished second in the 200 butterfly with a time of 1:54.91.
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Two more seniors, Justin Hill and Berry Thompson, also continued to shine for the Vikings, helping to bring home the victory.
Hill and Thompson finished 1-2 respectively in both the 50 and 100 freestyles. Hill taking the 50 free with a time of 20.84 to Thompson's 20.91 and Thompson taking the 100 free in a time of 46.08 to Hill's 46.73. Both 100-yard times were improvements from what the two swam at Ohio State the night before.
The three seniors, along with the rest of the squad, will look to keep that improvement coming next Saturday as they head to Oxford, Ohio to take on the University of Miami (Ohio) at 1:00 p.m.
