NEW LONDON, NH - The Saint Joseph's women's swim team opened the 2008-09 season with a 141-132 victory over Colby Sawyer College on Saturday afternoon. Ashton Piers '09 (Falmouth, ME), Lindsay D'Ascanio '11 (Kennebunk, ME) and Hannah Gajewski '12 (Biddeford, ME/McAuley) each won two events in the season-opener.

D'Ascanio and first-year swimmer Hannah Gajewski led the way with 40 points apiece and Piers recorded 32 points in the meet. Jamie Wojtkiewicz '12 (Bedford, NH) collected 27 points and Amanda Lanoix '12 (Lyman, ME) chipped in with 26 points in the season opener.

The second-year program looks to improve on the success achieved in the team's inaugural season, and the first meet displayed this squad's potential to accomplish just that. Five individual records were broken and one relay time was surpassed for the day.

Gajewski broke two team records, the 200 free and 200 IM events, in her first collegiate meet. Her 2:08.93 time in the 200 free broke D'Ascanio's 2:11.75 time set on January 12th, 2008 at Husson. The freshman broke another D'Ascanio time, a 2:29.41 in the 200 IM set at Husson on October 27, 2007, by nearly four seconds with a 2:25.91 mark in the event on Saturday.

With a time of 12:41.92 in the 1000 free, Lanoix shattered the former mark set by Lindsay Bates '10 (Waterville, ME), who swam the event in 14:27.23 at Husson last fall. D'Ascanio shaved .56 off her record time of 1:05.65 in the 100 fly, set last season at UNE (1/7/08), and posted a 1:05.09 to garner a top finish.

Wojtkiewicz set a new mark in the 100 free with a 1:02.51 time, topping last season's time of 1:04.37 by Erin Brady at Husson (1/12/08).

The women also broke a relay record by posting a 1:51.38 in the 200 free relay (D'Ascanio, Lanoix, Wojtkiewicz, Gajewski), two seconds better than last season's time of 1:53.98 set at the NEISDA Championship on February 15th.

Saint Joseph's will travel to Bangor, ME on Saturday, November 1st to compete against Husson University at 12:00 PM.

COMPLETE RESULTS