Baruch swimmers glide past York

Both the men and women's swim teams surpassed York College in their last meet on Monday night in Baruch's ARC Aquatic Center.

This was the men's team first victory of the season, while the women won their third in the row.

"The success against York was a reflection of hours of hard training," said Jessica Penaherrera of the women's team in an email. "As a captain, I was very pleased to see my teammates win their events that as a result gave us the victory."

Penaherrera had just missed beating the record of the 200 free individual and 200 free relay according to Coach Charles Lampasso.

"It was a very nice meet, York is actually a stronger team [now] than they were in past years," said coach Lampasso.

The men's team was successful in breaking records during the meet. Gabriel Yanez broke the freshman mark in the 400 free, Kenny Kim, who led off the 500 free relay, set a new school record and the 200 free relay was broken by freshman Ryan Flynn.

After this win, coach Lampasso said he saw the men's team perk up.

"We've been working really hard all year so it feels good to see that it paid off and hopefully there'll be more to come," said Flynn.

The coach says that the next big challenge for his teams will be against Lehman College. Lehman's men's team has won the conference the last four years in a row.

After Lehman, The College of Staten Island is the next challenge for the Bearcats.

"We lost to CSI due to diving," said coach Lampasso. "We don't have a diving board so it's hard to recruit." The coach says due to this CSI and Lehman gain many points.

Hunter College and CSI are the toughest opponents for the women's team, although they beat CSI on Nov. 10.

"They had diving, but we were able to outscore them," said coach Lampasso.

Aside from diving, a member of the women's team faced a challenge of her own at the York meet. Jia Feng, junior, was walking on the deck when someone from the men's team was warming up and accidently swung his arm into her eye. Feng had to swim through the 100 free time trails with some minor pain in her right eye.

"I am proud to say that he broke the school record, and I did my best time in the event," said Feng in an email.

Feng says her teammate swam quickly through his race so he could check on how her eye was doing. "He didn't even care that he broke the record, he wanted to make sure I was alright."

Coach Lampasso said the women's biggest strength are the returning team members. He feels that with the exception of divers, they "have a pretty well-rounded group."

This past weekend the two teams traveled to the Eastern College Athletic Conference finals.

"We are looking to place as the top CUNY school," said Penaherrera before the meet.

No matter the outcome, the teams will stick together to continue excelling this season.

"We worked hard together at practice and we won together," said Feng. "We've become one big family and we support each other win or lose."