Results: Friday | Saturday
PISCATAWAY, NJ – Rowan Hayes (Floral Park, NY) of the Maritime College men's swimming & diving team won his third career gold medal at the Metropolitan Championships on Saturday. The defending champion in the 100 yard breaststroke, he captured his second straight title by posting a time of 57.67 seconds at Rutgers University's Werblin Recreation Center. With Hayes leading the way, the Privateers were in third place as a team after two days of competition.
Hayes was the No. 1 qualifier after recording a 57.14-second clocking in the morning preliminaries. In the final, he defeated Brooklyn's Daniel Vasilkoff by 0.32 seconds to defend his gold medal. Hayes was also the 2024 Metropolitan champion in the 200 breaststroke.
The gold was his second medal of the meet. On Friday, Hayes took silver in the 200 yard individual medley with a time of 1:55.53. Also on Friday,
Alex Osypenko (Oyster Bay, NY) and
Matt Klimek (Malverne, NY) both made the "A" final in the 500 yard freestyle. Osypenko finished fifth in 5:09.07, while Klimek was seventh in 5:10.53.
On Saturday, Osypenko qualified for the "A" final in the 100 yard butterfly and placed seventh overall with a 56.06-second clocking. Klimek, meanwhile, took eighth in the 200 yard freestyle (1:50.22). Also reaching "A" finals in Saturday were
Michael Saharov (Staten Island, NY) in the 100 yard backstroke (seventh, 58.37) and
Parker Endress (Hamburg, NY) in the 400 yard individual medley (eighth, 4:58.10). In addition, Maritime placed fourth in three relays—200 yard freestyle (1:30.23), 400 yard medley (3:42.27), 200 yard medley (1:40.13).
Leading the way for the Privateer women was
Oceana Elefante (Sayville, NY), who advanced to the "A" final in two individual events. After taking eighth in the 50 yard freestyle with a time of 26.60 seconds, she placed fourth in the 100 breaststroke with a 1:15.41 clocking.
Heading into the final day of competition, the Maritime men are currently third in the team standings with 576 points. The women's squad, meanwhile, has 214 points, which is good for seventh place overall.
