Central Connecticut’s Swimming and Diving team kicked off their season strong, winning against several southern Connecticut universities at the Fairfield Invitational on Saturday. The seven seniors, seven sophomores, two juniors, and two freshmen comprise the CCSU swim team this year.

Their cogent sense of cooperation resonates in their formidable debut results; consistently placing in top four quickest swimmers in each of the 14 events competed in and winning three of them. These high scoring bouts managed to edge the Blue Devils past host school Fairfield University by 89 points for a first place finish. The final score was Central 490- Fairfield 396- Pace 112- Southern 86.

Continuing from their evident successes from prior seasons, the Central relay teams gave solid opening and closing performances to the invitational. A team comprised of sophomore Katie Czulewicz, sophomore Mariana Espino, junior Katelyn Mann and sophomore Simona Visinski took the third spot in the opening medley relay event less than a second behind the first and second placed teams. For the 400-meter freestyle relay senior Erika Maercklein and sophomores Hallie Perrin, Jeannete King and Simona Visinski grabbed the second place spot 0.14 seconds behind first place Sacred Heart.

Freestyle has been and still is a strength for the Blue Devils. Veteran talent and some strong swimming from underclassmen dominated the freestyle events. Even if they did not win any of these events, the Blue Devils still enjoyed the top place points.

The team took home a second and fourth place finish in the 800-meter event by seniors Gracie Regan and Keelin Kendall, respectively.

CCSU also finished second in the 200 and 400-meter event by Maercklein, second and fifth in the 100 meter by King and Perrin and the 50-meter by King and Maercklein, while Sacred Heart and Fairfield wrestled inconstantly for first place.

Their true successes of the day however sat on the mantle of another one of their strengths; breaststroke. The team won both their 100- and 200-meter breaststroke events with junior Katelyn Mann and sophomore Alex Lindgren grabbing the first and second place, respectively. Regan placed third in the 200- and 400-meter and freshman Abby Bacon placed fourth in both, resulting in a dominating single stroke point grab.

The team won one more event in the 200-meter by senior Kaylin McMahon, with junior Erin Brown in fourth, and got second in the 100-meter backstroke by King. Mann grabbed fourth in the 100-meter butterfly while Lindgren and Regan placed third and fourth respectively in the 200-meter Individual Medley, outnumbering Sacred Heart and Fairfield in the top scoring positions.

The team is going back south next Saturday on October 12, when Sacred Heart will host them. The Central diving team will debut there, as they didn’t participate last Saturday at Fairfield, looking to complement the strong outing performance of the swimming side.