SOUTH ORANGE, N.J. - In its second tight, non-conference meet in a row, the Marist men's swimming and diving team fell on the road to the Seton Hall Pirates of the Big East on Saturday afternoon. In a competition that came down to the final event, the Red Foxes came up just short by a score of 155-145. Sophomore Jason Ruddy (Lake Katrine, N.Y.) collected two of his squad's seven wins to highlight Marist's effort versus the Pirates.
Competing in three individual efforts, Ruddy nearly went three-for-three if not for a split-second defeat in his first swim of the day, the 100-yd breaststroke. In his initial event of the afternoon, the sophomore was out-touched by Seton Hall's Ryan O'Shaughnessy by a 59.25 to 59.97 decision. From there, Ruddy would sweep the butterfly races with a 1:57.23 time in the 200-yd discipline and a 52.02 time in the 100. He was also a victor in relay action as he swam the third leg in the 200-yd medley. Swimming with sophomores Dylan Cummings (Midland Park, N.J.) and John Spitzer (Fairport, N.Y.), and senior Brian Shannon (Baldwin, N.Y.), the team won the first relay of the day with a time of 1:37.50.
Cummings and Spitzer would augment their team win with individual victories later on in the meet. Cummings won a close battle in the 100-yd backstroke race with a 53.78 result, while Spitzer won the 50-yd freestyle with a time of 21.61.
Junior Nick Spinella (Franklin Square, N.Y.) was the fourth individual Red Fox to collect a victory as he won the 200-yd backstroke event with a 1.26-second win at 1:55.88. He nearly had a second win in the 200-yd freestyle as he came up just 0.27-seconds short of Brian Pauling at 1:45.66.
Marist's final win of the day came in the 400-yd freestyle relay. The team of Tyler Ferraro (Southbury, Conn.), Caleb Camp (Chapel Hill, N.C.), Spitzer and Spinella held off Seton Hall's "A" team with a final time of 3:14.97.
Sophomore Sean Sullivan (Huntington, N.Y.) also had a trio of strong performances on Saturday with three second place results. In the 500-yd freestyle, he swam to a time of 4:50.31, while in the 1000-yd freestyle he finished with a time of 9:53.35. In the 200-yd butterfly, he raced to a 1:59.58 time.
In diving action, Jacob Baker (Shavertown, Pa.) led Marist's effort in 1-meter action with a second place finish of 280.73. The sophomore came up just 0.30 points shy of defeating Seton Hall's Ben Mitchell, who finished at 281.03. In 3-meter action, junior Sean Molloy (Slingerlands, N.Y.) was the top scoring Red Fox with a second place finish of 272.48.
The Red Foxes will close out their regular season next Saturday, Feb. 2 with a home meet versus Binghamton. Following a Senior Day ceremony for the graduating class of 2013, the meet is slated to begin at 1:00 p.m.
