The St. John’s men’s swimming team took fifth place in the Big East Championships while the women’s team took 11th place.

The championships were held Feb. 22 and 23 at Nassau County Aquatic Center, where the University of Pittsburgh took the men’s title with 807 points. Notre Dame captured the women’s title for the sixth straight year.

Pittsburgh led the competition with a 300-plus point advantage over second place Rutgers. Virginia Tech (416) took third, Notre Dame (390) took fourth and St. John’s (356) rounded out the top five finishes on the men’s side.

Notre Dame easily took the women’s title far ahead of second place Rutgers (522.50). Miami (488) took third place, Virginia Tech (405) fourth, and Pittsburgh (396) fifth. St. John’s finished with 74 points.

The men’s team was led by senior Jaak Savvi, who took second place in 200-yard fly with a time of 1:48.07 and second place in the 100-yard fly with a time of 48.81.

Sophomore Michal Szapiel took second in the 1,650-yard freestyle with a time of 15:30.44, breaking his own school record.

Senior Danilo Perunovic, who was the two-time defending Big East 100-yard breast champion, was the runner-up with a time of 55.55.

The men’s 400-yard free relay team of Savvi, freshman Pawel Sokolowski, junior Milos Cerovic, and senior Danilo Perunovic finished fourth with a time of 3:03.26.

The Red Storm women took eighth place in the 800-yard free relay in 7:40.88 with a team of junior Melissa Kolackovsky, sophomores Darinka Savcic, Laura Nuudi and Beth Malinowski.

Malinowski also took 20th in the 1,650-yard free in a time of 17:30.

The relay team of Kolackovsky, and freshmen Adi Segal and Christine Myers finished 10th in the 400-yard free with a time of 3:34.34.

The 220-yard medley relay team of Nuudi, Myers, Segal and Kolackovsky finished 11th with a time of 1:50.37.

Adding to their top performances, the men’s and women’s teams combined to break 10 school records at the competition. Sokolowski individually broke three records, while having a part in a total of five.

He broke his record in the 50-free (20.49), 100-free (45.09), and 200-free (1:38.18), while being a member on the 200-free relay team (1:21.83) and the 800-free relay team (6:44.06).

Savvi posted a record time of 1:48.10 in the 200-fly and Gregory Danner improved with a time of 3:57.41 in the 400-IM.

On the women’s side, Kolackovsky slashed the previous 50-free record with a time of 23.88.

Malinowski broke the 1650-free record with a time of 16:30.78 and during that race took down the 1000-free record, passing that mark at 10:31.25