By Yuki Elkotby
The CUNY Athletics Conference (CUNYAC) held its three-day swimming championship from Friday, Jan. 31 to Sunday, Feb. 2 at Lehman College. Brooklyn College (BC) swimming teams competed against teams from Baruch, Hunter, John Jay, and Lehman.
The events were divided across each of the three days, with each day focusing on different skills, including relays and medleys, in which all four strokes of competitive swimming are being performed. Swimmers were able to display their proficiency in the butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke,
and freestyle.
On the first day, the Bulldogs’ Michael Kravets won first place in the 500-yard freestyle, scoring nine points and breaking his own school record with a time of five minutes, two seconds, and 79 milliseconds. The next event, a 400-yard medley relay, saw Kravets, Nicholai Krylyuk, Max Bratkovsky, and James Lee achieve a bronze medal as they ranked third. Kravets, Krylyuk, Bratkowsky, and Lee all ranked third in the next event of the championship, the 200-yard freestyle relay.
Bulldogs’ Alvaro Calabazo ranked first for men’s diving in the one-meter, and Jamshedzod Saidosimkhoni came in second. For women’s diving, Sydney Gdanski came in first for the 1-meter, but the streak was broken by Lehman diver Danelli Lora, who came in second place. The men’s team ranked third in the 800-yard freestyle relay with the help of Simeon Shkoruta, Ryan Badre-Hume, Eric Umkeev, and Joshua Natanzon while Baruch ranked first and second.
On the second day of the championship, the men’s team achieved second place in the 200-yard medley relay. Anastasia Kutuzov ranked third in the 100-yard butterfly event for the women’s team with one minute, four seconds, and thirty milliseconds. She then ranked second in the 100-yard breaststroke with one minute, 12 seconds, and 95 milliseconds.
Coming in on the third and last day of the CUNYAC championship, Kravets began the Bulldogs’ day by ranking first in the one-mile freestyle event with just 17 minutes, 53 seconds, and 12 milliseconds on the scoreboard, breaking his own record from last year. Though first place for the 200-year butterfly event was taken by Baruch’s
Michael Guzman, the Bulldogs’ Micheal Kutuzov ranked second in the event. The Bulldog’s men’s team also split the third-ranking with Baruch in the 400-yard freestyle relay. The women’s team ranked second in the 200-yard breaststroke with two minutes, 56 seconds, and 80 milliseconds via notable swimmer Kutuzov, while Hunter and Baruch ranked first and third, respectively. The women’s team ranked third in the 400-yard freestyle relay with the help of Kutuzov, Gdanski, Yara Malik Shaik, and Diana Plasencia.
The men’s team were able to place second in the conference, receiving the runner-up 2024-2025 trophy. This was the first time since the 2019-2020 season that the men’s swimming team won second place.
Though they worked hard and finished all their events driven with passion and dedication with the hope of coaches Brian Jensen, Ronaldo Barrios, and Antonio Gasper., the women’s team unfortunately dropped their rank from third to fourth this season.
All teams also received a series of awards for notable players. Gdanski and Kutuzov earned CUNYAC Women’s Swimming and Diving All-Star accolades, and Hailey Johnston was selected for the conference’s Sportsmanship team. On the men’s team, nine players including Kravets, Calabazo, Bratkovsky, Lee, Badre-Hume, Shkoruta, Natanzon, and Erik Umkeev received All-Star accolades, along with Krylyuk who received the conference’s Sportsmanship Award.
Both the women’s and men’s swimming and diving teams will be representing BC at the Metropolitan College Championships this upcoming weekend from Friday, Feb. 14 to Sunday, Feb. 16.