The Bentley swim teams celebrate Mary Kay Samko's 400th
The Bentley swim teams celebrate Mary Kay Samko's 400th

Samko Earns 399th & 400th Bentley Wins as Falcons sweep Le Moyne

WALTHAM, Mass. – Longtime Bentley University swimming coach Mary Kay Samko earned her 399th and 400th wins as the Falcons' head coach when her teams swept Le Moyne College Saturday afternoon at the Dana Center pool.

The Bentley women ran their winning streak to 12 with a 174-108 victory over the Dolphins and the men's team dispatched Le Moyne 189-85 for their 25th consecutive dual win.

Samko, now in her 23rd season directing the Falcons, owns a combined record of 400-139, including 46-2 since the start of the 2016-17 season. Her Bentley women's teams have strung together a 228-66 record and her men's teams are 172-73. The Arlington resident is closing in on another milestone as she is six wins away from reaching 500 as a collegiate head coach.

 The Bentley men, who won 15 of 16 events, were led by sophomore Paul Homorodean (Milford, Conn./Joseph A. Foran HS) and freshman Mark Zola (Nashua, N.H./Bishop Guertin HS).

Homorodean swam to victory in both the 100 yard breaststroke (1:00.83) and the 100 butterfly (52.94) while Zola posted first-place finishes in the three shortest freestyle events. He swam the 50 in 22.11 seconds, the 100 in 48.24 and the 200 in 1:46.84.

The two were also part of the Falcons' winning 200 free relay team (1:27.67) and Homorodean also anchored the 200 medley relay, which took first in 1:39.19.

Six other freshmen also posted individual victories for the Falcons. They were Zach Papsco (Northport, N.Y./Northport HS) in the 200 individual medley (2:04.32), Jeremy Glick (South Windsor, Conn./South Windsor HS) in the one-meter diving (151.11), Ellis Sartorio (Mountainside, N.J./Academy for Information Technology) in the 200 back (2:03.83), Alec Lanza (Hartland, Wis./Sanford School) in the 200 breast (2:17.82), Andrew D'Annolfo (Chestnut Hill/Newton South HS) in the 500 free (4:54.35) and Owen Busser (Chelmsford/Chelmsford HS) in the second one-meter diving (198.52).

The other individual winners for Bentley were junior Jared Yoshihara (Irvine, Calif./University HS) in the 100 back (55.18) and senior Frank Elenio (Ridgefield, N.J./Bergen County Academies) in the 200 fly (1:59.81).

The women's team, which prevailed in 11 of 16 events, had a trio of individual winners: senior Brooke Jameson (Bedford/Bedford HS), junior Paige MacNeil (Branford, Conn./Branford HS) and classmate Caroline Logozzo (Wethersfield, Conn./Wethersfield HS). Jameson was the first to the wall in the 200 free (2:01.09) and the 500 free (5:24.06) while MacNeil earned firsts in the 100 back (2:01.09) and the 200 back (2:13.00). Logozzo swept the diving with one-meter scores of 175.42 and 234.08.

The other individual wins for the women's team were posted by junior Ari Revelas (Snyder, N.Y./Nardin Academy) in the 100 breast (1:11.30), freshman Lucy Slowe (Millis/Millis HS) in the 100 free (56.67), sophomore Selin Karadeniz (Poughkeepsire, N.Y./Arlington HS) in the 200 breast (2:36.12) and senior Melissa Viator (Lubbock, Texas/Lubbock HS) in the 200 IM (2:16.71).

Both Bentley teams are off to 2-0 starts and will return to action next Sunday at Saint Rose.