WORCESTER, Mass. – Following a weekend that included nine gold medals, nine silvers and six bronze, the Bentley University Falcons successfully defended their Northeast-10 Conference championship with a winning margin of 231 points at WPI's Sports and Recreation Center.
The championships concluded Sunday evening with Bentley earning three gold medals, including the fourth and fifth of the meet for sophomore Mark Zoda (Nashua, N.H./Bishop Guertin HS).
Zoda broke his own school record while winning gold in the 100 yard freestyle. His time of 45.78 seconds bettered the mark he set in last year's championships by 0.15 seconds.
Later in the evening, he helped Bentley close out the meet with a first-place finish in the 400 free relay, swimming the anchor leg. Junior Paul Homorodean (Milford, Conn./Joseph A. Foran HS) led off and was followed into the pool by classmate Clayton Bennice (Ballston Spa, N.Y./Ballston Spa HS) and senior Alper Alkaya (Milan, Italy). Alkaya was also sixth in the 100 free.
Zoda finished the weekend with five golds, two silvers and three school records. It was the second straight year he's stood atop the podium five times.
Bentley's other Sunday evening gold was earned by senior Dan Sausto (Slingerlands, N.Y./The Doane Stuart School). He turned in a time of 16:02.67 to win the 1650 free for the third time in four years. Also in the 1650, junior Tanner Fales (Naples, Fla./Gulf Coast HS) was third with a 16:58.45.
Second-place finishes were achieved by freshman Anthony Vizental (Concord, Calif./Clayton Valley HS) in the 200 butterfly (1:51.82) and senior Jarod Yoshihara (Irvine, Calif./University HS) in the 200 back (1:53.87).
Bentley student-athletes finished four-five-six in both the 200 breaststroke and the three-meter diving. In the former, they were freshman Tanner Eisenbut (Jamesville, N.Y./Fayetteville-Manlius HS) (2:08.31), grad student Matt Bandy (Manhattan, Kans./Manhattan HS) (2:08.64) and senior Sam Trozenski (Pittsburgh, Pa./Mount Lebanon HS) (2:09.09).
Sophomore Jeremy Glick (South Windsor, Conn./South Windsor HS) was fourth in the diving (3:58.65) with classmates Owen Busser (Chelmsford/Chelmsford HS) (340.00) and Connor Long (Hackessin, Del./Sanford School) (274.00) following.
