Shupirates.com
The Seton Hall men’s swimming and diving team sent an early season message to conference-rival’s Georgetown and Villanova on day one of two-day tri-meet hosted by Rutgers, taking seven of the 10 events held on Friday.
The Pirates were led by freshmen Noah Yanchulis, who continued to keep up with his early success, finishing with two individual wins, out-pacing the field in both the 200-free, and 200-IM. Yanchulis entered the meet as the conference’s top-seed in the 200-free and came through with a season-best time of 1:42.84 to hold off Villanova’s Jason Moyer (1:43.69) and Daniel Ross of Georgetown (1:44.87), who rank second and third in the event respectively. Fellow Pirates Tim Bosse and Jason Tan finished with fourth and fifth place efforts to round out the heat.
In the 200-IM Yanchulis took care of top-seeded Samuel DeLise of Georgetown, hauling his way to the top time in the conference this season at 1:55.73. Georgetown’s Daniel Ross finished in second ahead of DeLise while Seton Hall freshman Zohar Suslovich took fourth with a showing of 1:59.23.
Perhaps the most exciting performance of the day came from freshmen Matt Zebrowski, who came on late in the 200-fly race to erase a deficit and earn an a win. The newcomer, already the owner of the mark to beat in the Big East conference trailed second-seeded DeLise by 1.27 seconds heading into the final leg, but pulled ahead of the Hoyas’ freshman at 1:55.11 at the finish and claim victory by a .01-second margin. Fellow teammate, Seth Underwood gave the Pirates a pair of top three finishers with a time of 1:58.74.
In the 100-breast ,two more freshmen helped set the pace as Sean Sali and Collin Dunn took the top-two spots. Sali took first-place after reaching the finish mark in 59.08 as Dunn touched the wall in 59.99 as the only other competitor to crack the one-minute mark.
In distance competition, Cody Wimmer took care of all competition finishing to a time of 9:43.44, faster than six seconds of runner-up Chase Ladman of Georgetown. Sophomore Ian Campbell added a fifth-place time of 10:04.39.
Day two of competition saw much of the same from the Pirates as they completed the sweep of Georgetown and Villanova in on Saturday. After recording seven wins on Friday, the Hall continued the success tallying six more on Saturday to improve to 7-1.
The blue and white are now 3-0 in the conference play, after rolling past Providence last week by a 181-93 final. The Pirates picked up right where the left off as the 200-medley relay team of Keith Carlino, Sean Sali, Zach DeLillo, and Tim Bosse claimed top honors in the event with a time of 1:34.92, holding off the Wildcat’s top squad by .35 seconds.
After two event wins on Friday, Noah Yanchulis kept his momentum moving delivering a victory at the 400-IM with a time of 4:07.48. Yanchulis later tallied his fourth individual victory on the weekend with a 500-free mark of 4:44.23, edging the Hoyas’ Daniel Ross.
The Hall will head off to Virginia next for the Patriot Invitational, a three-day event hosted by George Mason. Competition is scheduled to start on Thursday, Nov. 20 and will carry through Saturday, Nov. 22.
Charles Mul’ can be reached at Charles.mule@student.shu.edu.
