The College of Staten Island recently completed what was their final turn through the City University of New York Athletic Conference in 2019-20.  Leaving behind a tremendous wake as one of the CUNYAC's founding members, day-by-day we will be looking back at each of CSI's programs, notably the CUNYAC Championship teams spanning over 40 years in our spring CUNYAC retrospective entitled, "Remember the Legacy."  This historical look back will chronicle the amazing achievements of CSI athletics programs, complete with championships, milestones, and amazing performances.

Our next sport spotlighted will be Women's Swimming & Diving, a program that burst onto the scene as a founding member of the CUNYAC's sport offering with a pair of championships in its first two seasons of existence. The team would then finish runner-up in four of the next five CUNYAC Swimming & Diving Championships spanning from the 2001-2002 season through the 2005-2006 season before recapturing the conference title in 2006-2007.  Finishing with a winning record in five of the next seven seasons, the team failed to finish higher than third in the CUNYAC Championship during each of those years.  Five straight losing seasons followed, but with the announcement of the program's move to Division II ahead of this past season, the team finished 2019-2020 with a 7-5 mark and set the stage for a promising future.
 
THE START
The College of Staten Island became a Division III member institution in the fall of 1977, and was a founding member of the CUNY Athletic Conference.  However, it wasn't until much later in the 1995-1996 season that Swimming & Diving became a sponsored championship sport, first as a club, and a year later, as a varsity program.  With the Sports & Recreation Center equipped with a pool that has become an integral part of the Staten Island Swimming community, it is easy to see why CSI quickly became a major player in the conference's Swimming & Diving picture, one that opened championship play in 1999-00.  Led by Head Coach Oleg Soloviev, CSI joined John Jay, Brooklyn, Hunter, and Lehman as one of the founding members of the CUNYAC's sport offering which debuted in the fall of 1999.
 
THE FIRSTS (AS AN OFFICIAL CUNYAC MEMBER)
First Meet:  October 28, 1999 vs. William Paterson/Brooklyn - the Pioneers defeated the Dolphins. 73-47, & the Bulldogs defeated the Dolphins, 57-55
First CUNYAC Meet:  October 28, 1999 vs William Paterson/Brooklyn - The Bulldogs defeated the Dolphins 57-55
First Win:  November 11, 1999 - CSI defeated John Jay, 59-38.  This was also the program's first win against a CUNYAC Opponent
First Coach: Oleg Soloviev, who guided the unit until 2011
 
A STRONG FIRST IMPRESSION

It wasn't a promising start for the Women's Swimming & Diving program in their first season within CUNYAC play, as they started off 0-3 and suffered losses in five of their first six meets.  However, three of those five defeats came by razor-thin margins a, 57-55 defeat at the hands of Brooklyn, a 126-123 loss to Manhattanville, and a 62-60 loss against the College of Saint Elizabeth.  Despite the 1-5 record to open the season, the team still had two additional meets remaining ahead of their first-ever appearance in the CUNYAC Championship.  One of those meets, their second CUNYAC thriller of the season, saw the Dolphins come away with a two-point victory of their own against conference foe Hunter College.  This win within the conference helped propel the team into the upcoming championship meet where CSI ultimately came away with their first CUNYAC Championship led by stars like Tara Gianoulis and Carolina Wroblewski.  The Dolphins would then go on to win two of their next three meets before closing the season by participating in the Metropolitan Swimming Championship for the first time, an event which saw them finish 8^th out of 12 participants.
 
A REPEAT IN DOMINANT FASHION
The 2000-2001 season saw the Dolphins build upon their success during the previous year and exercise dominance over the CUNYAC.  During their five conference meets leading up to the CUNYAC Championship, CSI went 5-0 including a decisive 67-point victory over Brooklyn, a team that had defeated them the season prior, and an 89-16 win over a newly formed York College Swimming & Diving Team.  They also defeated another opponent that had beaten them during the prior season in the College of Saint Elizabeth, and the Dolphins entered the CUNYAC Championship with a record of 7-2 having won six straight meets.  Looking to cap off what was already a great season against the conference season with back-to-back titles, the Dolphins did not disappoint.  They once again won the CUNYAC Championship with stars like Laura Papagni, and Kim Delese aiding in the effort. They would go on to finish the season with an overall record of 8-4-1, a vast improvement over their 4-7 mark the year before, and the team appeared poised to maintain their success moving forward.
 
A NEW CONFERENCE CHAMPION
The 2001-2002 season began much like the previous year as the Dolphins were off to a 5-2 start that included three decisive wins over CUNYAC opponents.  This left only two conference meets and a holiday recess between the team and a shot at a third straight CUNYAC Championship.  The first of those meets, a matchup with Hunter College, dealt the Dolphins what was undoubtedly an unexpected blow to their championship aspirations.  On the road against the Hawks, CSI was handed a lopsided 79-42 defeat, one which established Hunter as the favorite to take home the conference title.  This would come to fruition seven weeks later as the Hawks earned their first CUNYAC Championship with the Dolphins finishing the meet as the runner-up. 

 

HEARTBREAK IN THE SEARCH FOR A THIRD TITLE
Throughout the next four years, the Dolphins compiled an impressive 28-10 record and lost only six meets within the conference.  However, four of those six losses came against the eventual champion in each of those seasons, Hunter College, and the Hawks would go on to make it five-straight CUNYAC Championship from the 2001-2002 season through the 2005-2006 season.  CSI would finish as the runner-up in four of those five CUNYAC Championship meets, no loss more devastating than the one they suffered in 2003-2004.  With both Hunter and CSI having earned two championships each in the history of the young programs, they remained locked in a back-and-forth battle to crown the CUNYAC champion that year.  In the end, Hunter narrowly escaped with a two-point victory to claim the spot as the program with the most CUNYAC titles.  It spoiled a great freshman effort from soon-to-be star Cheryl Gwizdaloski, who would excel over  her four-year career.
 


RECLAIMING CHAMPIONSHIP GLORY
With the rest of the conference looking up at the Hawks for the past several years, CSI had long been in search of an elusive third CUNYAC title when the 2006-2007 season got underway.  Losing three of their first four meets, one against rising conference foe Baruch College and another against Hunter, it did not appear early-on that this would be the season that saw that search for another championship come to an end.  However, the Dolphins won each of their next four meets in dominant fashion ahead of the CUNYAC Championship and entered that meet energized by performing at their highest level of the season.  This momentum carried through the championship meet and the Dolphins outlasted both Hunter and runner-up Baruch to finally recapture the CUNYAC Championship for the first time since the 2000-2001 season.  This marked the third conference title for Soloviev and the team and saw Tara Meiners earn CUNYAC Rookie of the Year recognition, but it would also go down as the last time CSI would take home a CUNYAC Championship.  The depth provided by standouts Kim Callahan, Cen Wang, and Maragret Borzymowski were pivotal in the run at the Championship.
 
A CHAMPIONSHIP DROUGHT ENSUES 

The Dolphins followed up their championship-winning season in 2006-2007 with a pair of stellar seasons each of the next two years going 15-6 over that stretch.  This regular season success failed to translate into a title with the team finishing third in the CUNYAC Championship meet both years.  Three years removed from their last championship, the team suffered their first losing campaign in a decade during the 2009-2010 season and similarly struggled to open the 2010-2011 season.  Following a 1-3 start, the team did bounce back and finish the year with a winning 6-5 mark, but for the second consecutive season they placed fourth in the CUNYAC Championship.  Despite the lack of championship trophies, the Dolphins did collect several accolades during these four seasons as Gabriella Villaruel was a three-time CUNYAC All-Star and both Meiners and Patricia Crea added a pair of all-star nods as well.
 
A QUICK TURNAROUND
With the 2011-2012 season already underway, the team welcomed new Head Coach Mike Ackalitis in December of 2011.  He inherited a team that was struggling to begin the season having already dropped their first three CUNYAC meets of the year and their first four meets overall.  However, the Dolphins would go on to win two of their final three meets against the conference and would see the first of many records set during their new coach's tenure come when April Bartlett compiled a score of 348.12 on eleven dives in the one-meter diving event.  Despite the midseason turnaround which saw the team win half of their remaining meets, they only managed to finish sixth in the CUNYAC Championship, the program's lowest placement in their history. 

Coming off their sixth-place finish in the CUNYAC Championship the year before, the Dolphins opened the 2012-2013 season by making a statement in their opening meet of the season.  In front of their home fans at the Sports & Recreation Center, the Dolphins took down Hunter College by three points to put the rest of the conference on notice.  The Dolphins would remain unbeaten until they squared off with three-time repeating champion Baruch, a meet they dropped 101-85.  CSI would only lose one more meet the rest of the way to wrap up the regular season 7-2, but in the CUNYAC Championship they would finish third behind the Bearcats and Hawks, the only other two teams to win a Women's Swimming & Diving conference title in the history of the CUNYAC to that point.  The impressive year in his first full season as Head Coach earned Ackalitis Coach of the Year honors and Dolphins Stephanie Collyer and Dakota Dawkins both earned CUNYAC All-Star selections.  The following season looked much like the one to come before it as the Dolphins posted a winning record for the second straight year and finished third in the CUNYAC Championship.  Collyer and Dawkins once again represented the program as CUNYAC All-Star selections, but this season would mark the last winning campaign for Women's Swimming & Diving until 2019-2020.
 
REWRITING THE RECORD BOOKS

Though the Dolphins did not post a winning record between the 2014-2015 and 2018-2019 seasons, they would see their student-athletes perform at the highest level in the history of the program.  Bartlett would go on to set records scoring across all diving events with the exception of six dives in the one-meter.  That record was set by Collyer in 2015.  Fellow CUNYAC All-Star Dawkins set the record times across breaststroke events that year and Samantha Escobedo set the records in backstroke events, but it was freshman Ewa Wojciechowskia who arguably made the biggest impression that year.  In 2015, she set program records in the one-mile freestyle and 200-IM while collecting four CUNYAC Rookie of the Week awards.  During her four seasons with the team, she set the program records across all freestyle events and earned both a Scholar-Athlete of the Year award and NCAA Woman of the Year honors from the CUNYAC.  Despite all of these new records and individual accolades, the Dolphins finished the CUNYAC Championship in third place during each of their final five seasons in the conference before announcing the move to NCAA Division II in the summer of 2019.
 
THE START OF A NEW ERA
Only months removed from the excitement of the announcement that the program would be moving to Division II, Women's Swimming & Diving began their most recent season unbeaten through their first three meets.  Unfortunately, they were unable to pick up one last victory over either Hunter or Baruch, meets that accounted for their first two losses of the season.  However, the team would go on to post their first winning season since 2013-2014 and is set to receive another infusion of talent next season with the introduction of their first Division II recruiting class.  Joining an already high-achieving group these new Dolphins will be looking to not only help establish CSI as a formidable Division II program, but to also continue building upon the legacy left behind through 20 years competing in the CUNYAC at the Division III level.
 
REMEMBER THE LEGACY
First Season: 1996-97 (1999-00 as part of CUNYAC)
All-Time Record: 125-97-1 (.561)
All-Time CUNYAC Record: 73-35 (.676)
CUNYAC Postseason Championships: 3 - 2000, 2001, 2007

Cover Photo from left to right:  Tara Meiners, April Bartlett, Ewa Wojciechowska