2024 Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) Championships
- Dates: Wednesday, February 14 – Saturday, February 17
- Location: Spire Institute, Geneva, OH
- Teams: Canisius, Fairfield, Iona, Manhattan, Marist, Monmouth, Niagara, Rider, Siena (women only), Mount St. Mary’s
- Combined
- Defending Champions (men): Rider (11x)
- Defending Champions (women): Fairfield (1x)
- Meet Central
- Live Results
- Live Video
- Digital Program
The Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Championships (MAAC) is set to kick off on February 14th, making it one of the first Division I Swimming & Diving conference championships of the 2023-2024 season.
Men’s Preview:
The Rider University men enter the 2023 championships on a 11-year winning streak, but could that be coming to an end in 2024?
According to the Swimulator, it might be. The men of Marist College, on paper, enter the meet with a 57-point advantage based on current season-best times.
Rider’s divers turned up big last year, including then-sophomore Sean Binning winning his second-straight 1-meter title, but he has since transferred to Virginia Tech.
Marist only has one diver on its roster, but he’s a good one: sophomore Ethan Gibbs won the 3-meter title last year as a rookie.
Off the blocks, the Marist Red Foxes are led by a deep distance crew. Freshman Adam Zaremba from Poland has the best mile time in the conference by 23 seconds after a 15:41.14 at the team’s mid-season invitational.
The team has also seen a big breakout from sophomore Caden Hardy. Last year, he was just 9th at the MAAC Championships in the 200 breast in 2:04.58. This year, he leads the conference already with a 2:02.47 – Marist ranks 1-2-4 in that event.
Rider, meanwhile, leans on its sprint crew, including 5th year returner Lucas Racevicius. A two-time defending conference champion in the 200 IM, he currently leads the MAAC in the 50 free and 100 backstroke.
He has only swum that 200 IM, his best event, once this season in an October dual meet against Rider, and his 1:58 was indicative of what seems to be a holistic shift.
But his versatility pays off on the Rider relays, where the team is projected to score the most points of any – including top seeds in both the 200 medley and 400 medley relays.
That’s sort of the opposite of last year, where Marist had the better sprint crew of the two programs.
While there’s a pretty clear two-team battle for the title, this is a deep conference. Iona is led by sprinter Michael Faughnan, who swam 44.17 mid-season at the ECAC Winter Championships to lead the conference by over a second. He also leads the league in the 200 free and 500 free. Another versatile swimmer, he’s the defending MAAC Champion in the 200 free, 500 free, and 200 back, including a new league record in the 500. He’s the defending MAAC Most Outstanding Swimmer for the men and appears on track to repeat that this season.
He leads an Iona 400 free relay at 3:01.95 which leads the league by over two seconds.
Iona has some other good pieces, including the league’s top 200 backstrokers this season Kieran Egan, and could win a lot of conference titles, but ultimately isn’t deep enough to compete with the top two (though they are an improved program overall from last year).
Niagara is led by breaststroker Sean Finley and sprinter Nathan Dragon, Farifield is led by distance swimmers Joseph Hunt and Ed Hunt (IM), Canisus’ top performer is backstroker Marin de Villard, and Manhattan College is led by the league’s second-best 100 breaststroker this season Joe Brennan (54.70).
Mount St. Mary’s is home to Aidan Grady, the defending MAAC Champion in the 100 breast, the only swimmer better than Brennan this season (54.48).
2023 Final Standings
- Rider – 646.5
- Marist – 599
- Niagara – 576
- Fairfield – 556.5
- Canisius – 405
- Iona – 317.5
- Mount Saint Mary’s – 260.5
- Manhattan College – 127
SwimSwam Men’s Predictions
Ultimately, Rider’s depth in the sprints I think will be too much for Marist to overcome – but this could be a down-to-the-last-relay kind of meet. Marist will be rooting for their colleagues at Niagara, who have the best chance of playing spoiler in those sprint events to end Rider’s streak.
- Rider
- Marist
- Niagara
Women’s Preview
The women of Niagara and Fairfield have traded titles in recent years, with last year’s title coming down to the final touch and Fairfield winning by a mere 4 points.
They return a huge portion of their top scorers including their six top individual scorers last season who combined for 8 event titles at last year’s meet. Among them is the MAAC Swimmer of the Year Erini Pappas who won the 200 back, 200 IM, and 400 IM at last year’s championship meet.
Her times at the mid-season BU Terrier Invitational were modest, and not as good as last year, so they’ll need her to pull together for MAACs if they want to defend their title.
Fairfield has gotten deeper this season thanks to two big additions. Nora Segurola Larrinaga, a Spaniard and graduate transfer from UNC Asheville, leads the conference in the 100 and 200 backstrokes this year, while Swedish-born freshman Tone Sandsjoe leads the conference in the 100 breast. Along with Erin Hoyland, who is #1 in the conference in the 500 and 1650 by a significant margin, two events where she won conference titles last season, Fairfield is positioned to dominate the gold medals again at this year’s MAAC meet.
While Fairfield is deeper this year than they were last year, Niagara still carries the torch for depth. At present, they have four swimmers seeded to score at least 50 individual points at the meet, including the conference’s top sprinter Paige South, who leads the MAAC in the 50 and 200 free and is 2nd in the 100 free.
She is the defending champion in the 50 and 100 free and was runner-up last year in the 100 fly in what was a huge breakthrough sophomore year for her. She’ll have a choice between the 100 fly and 200 free at the MAAC meet and will contend for conference titles in both races. Her 200 free best time of 1:52.74 actually came in a dual meet coming out of winter training, as did many of Niagara’s season-best times.
That’s what makes Niagara so hard to peg. They’ve had great times already this semester and so their season plan is a little hard to figure out.
Niagara’s depth took a hit, though, with the removal of freshman Natalie Killion from the team’s roster. The conference leader in the 100 fly with a dual meet time from October, which earned her MAAC Swimmer of the Week honors, her absence probably costs the team 50-60 points, and maybe their best shot at reclaiming the conference title.
Killion is entering the NCAA transfer portal after the season and says that she left the team on her own terms.
The Marist women had a great conference meet last year to take 3rd and push the top two, but they graduated a very good class that included Leigh-Anne Zanella and Veronica Stureborg.
Nellie Thompson is the likely candidate to push the aforementioned South in the sprint freestyles and is the MAAC leader in the 100 free this season.
Iona was 4th at last year’s championship meet, but they lost their two best swimmers in the offseason. 100 breast champion Julia Moser graduated, while 100 back champion and Rookie of the Meet Victoria Novinskiy transferred to Delaware.
Other big names to watch include Siena freshman Hope Ivanovich, who is 2nd in the MAAC in the 200 fly this season, and defending 1-meter champion Talia Spenziero; Iona’s Isabella Nicholson and Megan Josephs; Rider’s Hannah Yemec, who is ahead of Ivanovich in that 200 fly, Canisius IM’er Brenna McLaughlin; and Mount Saint Mary’s’ Christina Lazari, who won bronze in the 100 breast at last year’s MAAC meet and was faster mid-season at 1:03.41.
2023 Final Standings
- Fairfield – 609
- Niagara – 605
- Marist – 566
- Iona – 495
- Canisius – 337
- Siena – 293
- Rider – 265
- Mount Saint Mary’s – 239
- Manhattan – 150
SwimSwam Predictions
In a meet decided by 4 points last year, the loss of a 50 point swimmer is a difference-maker for Niagara. If they have a typical taper off their dual meet times, they could still make a run at this, but with their new additions, this is Fairfield’s meet to lose.
- Fairfield
- Niagara
- Marist
Killion entering the portal is a major loss for Niagara. Wondering what the deal was there?
We not going to talk about how Saint Peters is not mentioned once here? they currently have the fastest 100 flyer in the MAAC alongsided 5th and 6th in that event aswell.
someone make a sportsbook for swimming so that I can pay my rent betting Michael Faughnan ML in whatever he swims
Go Red Foxes!!
Nothing to report
Niagara won 4/5 relays last year, they’re not playing spoiler to anyone
Let’s go Purple Eagles!!!