St. Joe's Takes Second in GNAC Championships

BOSTON, MA - Saint Joseph's amassed 111 team points to take home second place in the Great Northeast Athletic Conference Swimming & Diving Championships over the weekend at Simmons College. Freshman Hannah Gajewski (Biddeford, ME/McAuley) earned an individual first place finish in the 200-free (2:05.95) and 100-IM (1:07.02) events and was a member of the winning 400-medley relay team (4:31.32) along with Lindsay D'Ascanio '11 (Kennebunk, ME), who also secured a top finish in the 200-back (2:23.56) for the Lady Monks. Simmons College won the event for the fifth year in a row, and seventh time in eight years, with 190 points.

In just it's second year, the SJC swim team seems to be closing the gap as far as conference competition is concerned. Last season, the team posted a fifth place performance and tallied 65 team points.

Gajewski's times in the 200-free, 100-IM and 1650-free, in which she place second with a time of 19:56.12, all set new school records as she is now listed in the SJC record book for seven events. D'Ascanio's prelim time of 2:22.90 in the 200-back set a new record for the program and the second place 200-free relay (1:50.21) squad and 400-medley relay (4:31.32) team also set new team marks.

The top two 200-free relay teams both broke the former GNAC Championship Meet time of 1:50.48. Saint Joseph (CT) edged out St. Joe's with a 1:50.19 time to win the event with a new GNAC record time.

For earning first place finishes in the conference championship, Gajewski, D'Ascanio and fellow 400-medley relay team members Katie Brooks '11 (N. Kingstown, RI) and Jamie Wojtkiewicz '12 (Bedford, NH) were all named to the 2008 GNAC Swimming and Diving All-Tournament Team.

Amanda Lanoix ‘12 (Lyman, ME) and Ashton Piers ‘09 (Falmouth, ME/Deering) both posted impressive performances in the title meet. Lanoix earned a second place finish in the 50-free (27.94), was third in the 100-free (59.88) and was a member of the second place 800-free relay team, which notched a time of 9:05.65. Piers also swam a leg of the 800-free relay, as well as the third-place 200-medley (2:08.35) relay team, and collected a second place berth in the 50-breast (36.45) and a third in the 100-breast (1:21.38).

Brooks, Wojtkiewicz, Danielle Harmon '10 (Poland, ME) and Rose Maccarrone '12 (Hingham, MA) all advanced to the finals in at least one event and combined to add eight individual points to the SJC tally.

Saint Joseph's will next hit the pool at 6:00 PM on January 13th at the University of New England.