The College of Staten Island recently completed what was their final turn through the City University of New York Athletic Conference in 2019-20, and will be fully integrated into the East Coast Conference with an NCAA Division II schedule in 2020-21.  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.

On the heels of exploring CSI's sports offerings and chronicling the over 100 CUNYAC Championships they assumed, we take a look back at the first of two magical seasons captured in CSI Athletics history.  The first was the 2000-2001 campaign, which at the conclusion, saw CSI win the program's first-ever CUNYAC Commissioner's Cup, awarded to the most decorated CUNYAC program over the calendar year.  The CUNYAC Commissioner's Cup has existed since 1997-98, and so CSI took home the award in its fourth year of existence.

THE CONTEXT
The CUNYAC Commissioner's Cup is the CUNYAC's highest honor given to a athletics program that recognizes the athletic achievements from the academic year, and is normally awarded in late-May by the conference to the deserving winners at CUNYAC's annual Michael Steuerman Scholar-Athlete Awards Banquet at year's end.  The Commissioner's Cup works on a point system, where individual programs score points according to Regular Season and Postseason finishes.  To level the playing field, only a program's top 10 sports are allowed to earn points towards the CUNYAC Championship.

This is something that made CSI's win of the trophy in 2000-01 so unique.  At the time CSI took home the trophy, the program only sponsored 10 sports (Men's Soccer, Women's Volleyball, Baseball, Softball, Men's & Women's Basketball, Men's & Women's Swimming, and Men's & Women's Tennis).  Thus, CSI needed the entirety of its sports arsenal to lend itself to the effort, where perhaps other programs, with more sports, could afford to have a few of their programs slip while others could achieve points, and encumber more of the point-earning weight.  Because of this, CSI resigned itself to thinking it would be extremely difficult to ever win the award.  This was proven in the years leading up to 2000-01.  In the three years prior, CSI finished a distant second each year.  In 1998, they finished 75 points behind Hunter College.  In 1999, they finished 50 points behind the Hawks, and in 2000, despite a tremendous campaign, they finished 19.5 points behind Hunter yet again.

Going into 2000-01, the Dolphins certainly entertained the idea of narrowing the gap further, but didn't know at the time they would capture the title.  In what still goes down as one of the tightest races in Commissioner's Cup history, CSI took the win by just 3.5 points overall.

THE FALL
CSI braced itself for the fall of 2000 with fair optimism across the board.  Women's Volleyball was perhaps the lone exception, as the team was coming off of a struggling campaign where they had won only a handful and games and the focus was simply on rebuilding.  It cast a big light on the other fall sports of Men's Soccer and Women's Tennis to carry the torch.

 

Women's Tennis was the first, and perhaps the most important, to make an impression.  The team raced to a 5-0 record in the month of September, with all five wins coming against the CUNYAC.  The most impressive of the wins came against perennial-powers Hunter College, a 5-4 victory at the National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows.  In fact, CSI's first seven matches in 2000 were against their CUNYAC brethren and they ran the table, going a perfect 7-0, with that win over the Hawks serving as the narrowest of the victories.  The perfect record of 7-0 was one better than Hunter's 6-1 mark, and it meant five more Commissioner's Cup points over Hunter, so in essence, the difference in the standings many months later.

Still, for all the fanfare of how the season started, CSI Women's Tennis had a tough finish in 2000.  The team dropped their three non-conference matches to close the season, and that ushered in the CUNYAC Postseason Tournament.  CSI was understandingly the favorite going into the Postseason Tournament, especially as the conference's defending back-to-back champs in 1998 & 1999.  Despite the best efforts from the likes of ace Liza Dungo and No. 2 Singles champ Dharma Musacchia, Head Coach Bruce Knittle's troops could not come full circle, and they dropped a narrow three-point decision at the hands of the Hawks.  A few days later, Hunter would win the Women's Volleyball Championship too, racing out to a huge lead over CSI in the Commissioner's Cup race.

Fans of CSI Men's Soccer in 2000 came into the season with high hopes.  The team had won Championships in both 1996 & 1998, and the team was hoping to recapture the magic again after another two-year period with Head Coach Carlo Tramantozzi at the helm.  In 1999, CSI finished 9-7-1, but lost a heartbreaker to John Jay in the first round of the tournament, 3-2.  But the Dolphins proven snakebitten in 2000.  First, CSI all-time leading scorer Nedgy Nazon decided to forego his final season at CSI and left school after just three years, and returning standout Thomas Consolmagno injured his knee just two games into the 2000 season, and just like that, CSI appeared dead in the water.  CSI finished the campaign just 1-11-1, their lowest win total in school history.  The lone win, ironically, was a 2-0 winner over Hunter.  York College, which scored a huge upset win over top-seeded CCNY, would go on to beat Medgar Evers in the CUNYAC title game that year, 3-2, in overtime.

After the fall sports season, CSI had little hardware, the CUNYAC Women's Tennis Regular Season Championship, but they were still in the mix for CUNYAC excellence, with the winter basketball and swim seasons holding promise.


 

THE WINTER
After a lackluster men's soccer and women's volleyball finish, CSI was anxiously looking forward to the winter sports lineup.  Under veteran Head Coach Oleg Soloviev, CSI Swim was to first to open their respective seasons, on October 26, 2000, suffering a loss on the men's and women's side to William Paterson University, but a week a later, when all of CSI's fall teams had concluded their seasons, CSI followed with wins against NCAA Division II New Jersey Institute of Technology, paving the way for a pair of great seasons by the units.

Just days before CSI opened their respective basketball seasons, Women's Swimming posted their first CUNYAC victory against John Jay College, and they would run the table from there, winning all five of their CUNYAC contests to finish 5-0, winning the Regular Season Championship.  With standouts like Tara Gianoulis and Carolina Wroblewski leading the way, CSI completed the perfect run with a first-place finish at the Postseason Championship Meet, which actually took place, for the first and only time in history, at the CSI Sports & Recreation Center.

CSI Men's Swimming & Diving followed similar suit except for the fact that the CUNYAC did not sponsor a Postseason Championship Meet in the sport until the following season, as the conference was still in its relative infancy in the sport, a couple of years behind its female counterpart.  All the same, CSI was the power, and won the CUNYAC's Regular Season with a 3-0 record, winning their matches by an average of 23 points per contest.  They would finish their campaign 6-3, while the women finished 8-4-1.  

The CUNYAC Championships for Swimming & Diving Championship would happen towards the end of the conference's basketball campaigns, and by then CSI was establishing their place as well.
 

Third-year Head Coach Marguerite Moran was building a powerhouse in women's hoops and 2000-01 was no exception.  Led by Courtmey Aimetti and Keisha Cook, the Dolphins scored a 17-7 regular season, but among those losses was a lopsided affair against Lehman College, and a loss to Hunter College, which won the Hawks the Regular Season Championship.  CSI was the No. 3 seed entering the Tournament, but they moved easily past John Jay to match up with Lehman in the semifinals, who had beaten them by 31 just a couple of weeks prior.  This time, on the big stage, CSI was downright dominant, beating Lehman, 106-80, to punch their ticket to the final, powered by Aimetti's 30 points.  That put CSI in the Final vs. Hunter, and in the annual grudge match, Aimetti was tremendous, scoring 21 points with an astounding 23 rebounds to help beat the Hawks, 83-70, garnering the CUNYAC's NCAA bid, and winning the Dolphins their second CUNYAC Championship of the school year within just a couple of weeks of one-another.

The CSI men were looking to join the women as Champions, and CSI started the season 5-1, ending their campaign with a 10-3 CUNYAC mark, a couple of games behind first place York College in the South Division standings.  The Cardinals, however, were ousted in the first round of the Postseason Tournament, and it left the door open for CSI, as the tournament's No. 2 seed to make a run at a title.  Led by David Paul and Kassim Nesbitt, CSI did just that in a 76-54 win over Hunter College in the quarterfinals, and then skated to 59-55 win over John Jay, pitting the team against hosts-CCNY, the No. 8 seed in the tourney, in the CUNYAC Championship.  CSI may have been heavily-favored, but they proved the victim to the Cinderella Beavers team, as they were downed 77-69.  With a tremendous senior class of Paul, Nesbitt, Champ Albano, Eric Andres, and Michael Alfieri, CSI would go on to win the CUNYAC Championship a year later, but for now they had to settle as runner-up, but with a few Commissioner's Cup points to their credit.


 

THE SPRING
CSI had an amazing winter season, winning essentially three out of four CUNYAC Championships, and that was a pretty tough act to follow for CSI's modest three sports of Baseball, Softball, and Men's Tennis as the weather turned warmer and play focused on the outdoor season and the 2001 calendar was well underway.  All three teams had high hopes in 2001.  Baseball was defending a CUNYAC Championship, while Softball and Men's Tennis had come up just inches short the year before.  CSI wouldn't sweep the spring sports Championships in 2001, but they did challenge every step of the way.

Even the rebuilding Baseball team, led by pitcher Tom Colluci and hitters like Brian Gibbs, Chris Miliante and Victor Castore, made a dent in the postseason under Head Coach Bill Cali, getting to the CUNYAC Championship game, losing a heartbreaker to Baruch College, 5-3.  CSI Softball, meanwhile, won the CUNYAC Regular Season crown by virtue of a 13-1 CUNYAC mark under Head Coach Gina Battista.  That high seed mattered little, however, as in the CUNYAC Semifinals in 2001, Hunter College was able the thwart CSI's hopes with a 4-3 win over the Dolphins, shutting CSI out of a would-be Championship Game appearance.  It spoiled a great season by pitchers Theresa Caputo and Kelly Payne and hitter Donna Przybyszewski, who batted over .400.

That left Men's Tennis as CSI's only hope of a spring championship.  They would not disappoint.  They started out to a 4-0 record on the season, ultimately going 8-2 on the year.  The Tournament was heavily competitive with both Baruch and Hunter giving chase, but in the in end, Robert Klein led Bruce Knittle's unit to a narrow, three-point win over second-place Baruch to lift the crown for the seventh time in the last nine years.

THE UNVEIL
CSI knew they were within reach of the Commissioner's Cup in 2001, but it still needed to be officially announced by the CUNYAC in the coming days who would take the honor, as Hunter College also felt they were within distance after a quality finish in the spring semester.  The CUNYAC made their announcement at the same time they announced their scholar-athlete winners and for the first time CSI was crowned Champions, joining the Borough of Manhattan Community College, which won the award on the junior college level.  Then CSI Director of Athletics Dr. Harold M. Merritt, who came to the Dolphins in 1999 and would serve in that capacity until 2006, accepted the award in the ceremony held at Baruch College, and later, the Commissioner's Cup was unveiled at CSI's Award Banquet, accepted this time by President Dr. Marlene Springer from CUNYAC Commissioner Zak Ivkovic, who was on-hand to present the trophy.

CSI finished with 110 points earned in the Commissioner's Cup standings, just 3.5 points ahead of Hunter at 106.5.  It was the tightest Commissioner's Cup race at the time, and remains the third-tightest race in the history of the Cup.  CSI would not win another for 17 years, proving just how special CSI's 2000-01 achievement was.  

THE FINAL COUNT
CUNYAC POSTSEASON CHAMPIONSHIPS: Women's Swimming, Women's Basketball, Men's Tennis
CUNYAC POSTSEASON RUNNER-UP: Women's Tennis, Men's Basketball, Baseball, Softball
CUNYAC REGULAR SEASON CHAMPIONSHIPS:  Women's Tennis, Women's Swimming, Men's Swimming, Baseball, Softball
FINAL STANDINGS:  Staten Island (110), Hunter (106.5), York (65), Lehman (60.5), Baruch (40), Medgar Evers (28), CCNY (23), John Jay (17), NYC Tech (3), Brooklyn (0)

Cover Photo from left to right: Director of Athletics Dr. Harold M. Merritt, CSI President Marlene Springer, Courtney Aimetti, David Paul