2000 - Dolphins Swimmers Deliver In Home Pool

Staten Island, NY - The defending champions, the College of Staten Island held off rival Hunter College to capture the 2001 CUNYAC / Sprint PCS Women's Swimming & Diving Championship. CSI swimmers won six events opposed to the Hawk's seven, but the Dolphins scored 89 more points in the two diving events to win by a 55-point margin, 685-630.

Sophomore Kim Delese (Tottenville / Staten Island, NY) won three individual events on the day, the 50 - yard Butterfly (33,42) and both diving events -1 Meter (214,90) and three Meters (219,75), in addition to a bronze medal in the 200-yard freestyle (2:02.40). Freshman Carolina Wroblewski (Moore Catholic / SI, NY) also won both sprint freestyle events, the 50-yard Freestyle (26,46) and 100 yard (69,65) for the winners.

" This was the most exciting event I have coached here at CSI," said fourth year head coach Oleg Soloviev. "It was neck and neck between us and hunter. The competition just keeps getting better and better, and overall 13 records were broken from the last season."

Hunter was lead by last year's Most Valuable Swimmer, Maureen McBride (Ridgefield, CT), the only athlete to win four gold medals, the 50 yard Breaststroke (34,36), the 100 yard Individual Medley (1:06.68) and the 100 yard Breaststroke in 1:15.72, breaking the one - year old CUNYAC records in each event. She also swam the first leg of the final event, the 200-yard freestyle relay, which the Hawks won in 1:56.21. Hunter's other three wins were all from Lizette Castillo (Bogota, Colombia), who took the top spot in the iron man event the 500 freestyle (6:23.25), breaking last year's initial CUNYAC record in both events.

For the second straight year, the Most Valuable Swimmer came from a team that did not win the championship, as Brooklyn's Svetlana Kutyrcheva (Moscow, Russia) was awarded the trophy. The junior, who now resides in Brooklyn won three individual events and was a silver medallist on the Bridges' 200 freestyle relay. Kutyrchevs topped the 200 individual Medley in 22:33.20, the 100 Butterfly (1:07.78) and the 200 freestyle (2:08.83) taking all three in record time. Brooklyn College finished finished in fourth place with 258 points behind Lehman College with 340 points.

"Its an amazing feeling to be recognized," said Kutyrcheva. "But I don't feel like it was just for me, I will share this with my teammates. If it wasn't for my coaches and friends pushing me, I wouldn't be here today."

Notes: John Jay College, York College and Queens borough Community College were none - scoring participants due to first year varsity status. John Jay's Angelica Linares finished in second place in the 100 backstroke and the 100 Breaststroke. She has two children and works as a bartender after being a full time student during the day…..Hunter's McBride was also a double gold medallist in women's tennis this past fall..CSI also won the regular season championship with a perfect 3-0 mark.

CUNYAC