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The 3rd Annual Sister Lucide Alumni Meet
Saturday, June 14th
What a fantastic night! I couldn’t have been happier with the result of this year’s Sister Lucide Alumni Meet. The Alumni Men came out in full force with tremendous numbers and talent. And the women… shy on numbers, but extra strong in spirit! Spirit that was instilled in them by none other than Sister Lucide herself! Thanks to all the current Varsity swimmers and divers who attended this great celebration. For me, it’s extremely important for you to experience where the spirit of the Friars comes from. Looking across that pool deck, you see that it’s something you will carry with you for a lifetime. Our meet began with the Alumni women, Caitlin Biagioli ’07, Caitlin Schettino ’06, Jacqui Cohen ’08, and Kaitlin Krause ’02, setting a new record in the 200 Med. Relay with a time of 2:16.94! Another highlight was at the completion of the diving (splash down!) event… the Friar flame burned bright once again when teammates Karen Dzurilla ’01 and Lauren Ruane ’01 put on the ol’ Black and Gold and said “We’re in Coach”! Merchant Marine Nick Chester ’07 requested a leave of absence for the weekend to come to the meet. Nick will begin his first ship tour next week. (Best of Luck Nick!) We also had the pleasure of witnessing the talents of Coach Annie ‘95 and Coach Nicole. And of course, another highlight was Coach Scott first pulling his workout partner, the infamous John Santangelo ’05, off the block (legal in Coach Scott’s day… so official Nina Cunningham let it go!) and bringing the stands to its feet when he took the fly event. I could go on and on, bragging about every swimmer that was in attendance and talking about all the old times. But to sum it all up, it’s really all about the fun we had. Having our amazin’ group of supporting parents put together another spread of food, and seeing all our swimmers and divers talking about our teams past and present and how they come together. I found it incredible how nobody was leaving. Everyone continued to hang around and enjoy each others company. We had Justin Bertuch ’08 who’s attending Catholic U of A in the fall meet Caitlin Schettino ’06 who already attends and swims for CUA. Other swimmers were inquiring about other colleges that they heard about. After our awesome parents filled everyone’s stomachs and cleaned up the pool area, Chandra and the Rivera Family drove the leftovers to the Pax Cristi Center where the nightguard on duty was a graduate of St. Anthony’s! Once again we made a ton of needy people very happy. Thank you! Thank you to all the Swimming and Diving Alum and of course our current Varsity teams. I always enjoy cheering for all of you. Special thanks to Sister Lucide for your 15 years of unforgettable work! Thank you to my entire coaching staff and Friar Parents. You make this program so special! I’m already looking forward to next season.
Alumni Meet Records: Alumni Swimmers
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Congratulations to
Josh Willis Josh received both the Top Science Award and the Top Math Award at St. Anthony's High School for the graduating class of 2008. Josh is headed to Case Western Reserve University in the fall. |
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Maggie Fisher Cross Bay
Swim
Applications are online for the Maggie
Fisher (St. Anthony's class of 2000) Memorial Cross Bay
Swim.
It's an awesome
5.2
mile swim across the Great South Bay. This year's swim
will be on Thurs. July 24th.
Check out the web site: www.GreatSouthBaySwim.com
Join the many Friars who
have crossed the bay:
Coach Annie, Brianna Riley, Garret
Golden, Kelly Taylor, Amanda Mazzarella, Liz Darcy,
Kieran McShane Sr., Adam Drago (who's swimming it this
year... right Adam) and many more.
Any questions... please don't hesitate to
ask.
-Coach Dan
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| 2008 State
Championships
Eisenhower Park, Long Island February 29 - March 1
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Billy Krause finished 7th at States in the
200 IM with his personal best 1:57.27.
Congratulations to all four Friar qualifiers:
Freshman Bryan Galan
Sophomore Mike Forgione
Junior Billy Krause
Freshman Bernil Carmichael-Lopes
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Friars finish
3rd at Champs! Billy Krause, Bryan
Galan, Mike Forgione & Bernil Carmichael-Lopes are headed to States.
“A” Champs!
Now that’s what I call amazing. The Friars couldn’t possibly do
any better. That percentage of best times and diving scores
usually doesn’t exist. But anything is possible when it comes
to the Friars.
What made this year
so special to begin with? In past years, we’ve had about a
dozen A Champ qualifiers who always made us a formidable team in
the league. Then last year, as our team began growing deeper,
we finally qualified our highest number of qualifiers at 17.
Giving it our best effort for improvement over last year, we
qualified an amazing 27 swimmers and 4 divers for a total of 31
“A” Champ participants. Although that’s already enough to make
any coach proud, read on to see what the Friars are really
capable of.
Our Championships
began last Friday night at Fordham University with the diving
event. Coach Beth had our Friar divers more than prepared.
They all peaked at just the right time. Kyle Gannon, Patty
O’Connell, and Megg McNally, placed 5th, 6th,
and 8th respectively, with Chelsea Strobl gaining
valuable experience in the four hour, 11 dive Championship
Meet. How about some incredible diving stats: ALL three of our
finalists scored over 300 points each. Freshman Kyle Gannon is
now less then 20 points away from our team record. Patty and
Megg more than doubled their improvement from the previous year
in a more talented and deeper group of league divers. My
congratulations to Coach Beth, and all the overachieving
divers. You were a pleasure to watch.
After the divers set
the bar, it was time for the swimmers to excel as well. And
that they did. We started with our 200 Med. Relay, Billy
Krause, Bernil Carmichael-Lopes, Bryan Galan, and Mike “4G”
Forgione. Our school record sat at 1:43. Twice this season,
the junior, freshman, freshman, sophomore quartet were able to
just miss the mark at dual meets. It was in Trials on Sat. that
they finally put their names on the Friar record board with a
1:42.19. Coach Scott and I immediately began reminiscing about
the unreachable 141.00 that was at our former high school when
we swam. Back then, we wondered when we’d have a relay possibly
go THAT fast. Well, it only took one more day added to our 20
something year wait when the amazin’ young Friars became the
first ever Men’s Med. Relay to qualify for states with the
blazing 1:40.42.
After the relay
performance, dropping swim times became contagious. Best times
were everywhere. In the 200 free, Chewy dropped a huge 7
seconds to go a 210.18. The best swim of his Friar career.
John Mitchell dropped 3 of his own to swim a 203.19. Galan hit
his season best at 153.55. Jake Pisano, after already swimming
a personal best 1:56, dropped time again to go 154.36. Danny
McCarthy is now about to make his presence known at Champs.
After consistently swimming best times all season long, and
being a great leader to many of our young freshman, challenging
them at meets and giving them “pep” talks to psych them up… it
was time for the veteran to show ‘em how it’s done. D.Mac swam
his personal best in the 200 IM dropping another 3 seconds and
swam a 222.31. At this point, Kieran McShane is keeping a
running total of seconds dropped for the team.
Monte Jiran was one
of our returning swimmers from being sick and out of the water
for a week before champs. I actually thought he wouldn’t make
the meet, but sure enough, as tough as he is…. was right on
deck, goggles in hand and waiting for his warm-up. Would you
believe that even he swam his personal best. Monte dug deep to
go a 211.25 and moved up even more spots in Consols to score
extra points for the Friars. One of our big surprises was Mike
Forgione in the IM. “4-G” qualified for finals in the event and
swam another personal best at 205.82. Billy Krause, this years
CHSAA Coaches Award winner for St. Anthony’s, was the top
qualifier in the 200 IM. Billy swam a 158.08 and qualified for
states. Congrats Billy.
Our 50 freestylers
continued to rage war against the stopwatch. Pete Lanwes… best
time. Drago, best time (flat start). Mike Keane… best time.
Siebert…. best time. Afonso… best time. McShane… best time
(flat start). Christian Ruhnau… best time. Justin Bertuch and
Chris Hoey… are you kidding? They will be talking about this
meet for the rest of their lives. Both with seasons to remember
qualified to make it back and swam a 23.39 and 24.06
respectively. I won’t have to answer the question from my
coaching colleagues, “Who’s the new kid Bernil that you got?”
Because now they all know. Bernil qualified in the top heat and
swam an incredible 23.10.
Of course, the 100
fly started of with… best times. Corey Martin started us off
with his best, dropping 4 seconds. Connor Hayes went 101 (his
best) twice, making it back to score points. Willis muscled out
his best ever 100 fly almost breaking the 1 minute mark. Billy
Krause shined again with his second state qualifying time of
53.71.
Siebert, Keane,
Sullivan, and Ramirez all broke a minute in the 100 free and
went 58. James Krawczyk swam his personal best at 100.18.
Chewy finished his Friar tenure with a career best at 57.56.
Senior Chris Hoey dropped a whole second and a half to sprint
54.20. Freshman Stephan Brant, who was in the same boat as
Monte and just got over being sick, didn’t want to be left out
and swam his personal best dropping time twice to eventually go
53.26 and score more Friar points. Justin Bertuch, who started
the season off struggling a bit in the 100, knew he had to
improve to be competitive at the end of the season. Putting in
the most effort and work of his outstanding Friar swimming
career, qualified to make it back and eventually swam an amazin’
52.46. Mike Forgione swam his best in Finals with a 50.35… but
his story gets better later.
Our distance
freestylers were our youngest overall group. Freshman Vacchiano
hit his converted seed time in yards at a 6:12.17. His best of
the season. Freshman John Mitchell swam his guts out in Trials…
makes it back to Sun. in his Championship debut, then drops 6
more seconds breaking the 5:30 mark at 5:29.39. Monte Jiran…
absolutely running on fumes, toughs out enough to qualify back
on Sun, only to drop three seconds off his season best. One of
our strongest freshman and tough competitor, Bryan Galan
qualified for the Final heat and scored major points with his
best 5:02.23.
Initially going into
the 200 Free Relay, we (the coaches) thought these guys had some
big shoes to fill knowing that they had to improve on the 140
seed time to make the finals. As it turned out, they actually
needed a 1:37 to make the top 8. Justin Bertuch, Jake Pisano,
Christian Ruhnau, and Chris Hoey ALL went 23. to finish 6th
overall with an unbelievable time of 1:34.30. At this point,
Senior Captain John Napoli celebrated by jumping off the top of
the 10 meter platform. We’ll have Coach Beth work on that with
you Naps.
In the 100 back,
Kieran McShane and James Krawczyk drop 3 seconds to go 1:11, so
in the next heat, Corey Martin, who already goes a 1:11, now
swims a 1:08.74. Time for D.Mac to once again completely tear
up the pool. I thought his 1:01 in Trials was amazing. He went
100.78 on Sunday in the Consols. Freshman Connor Hayes and
Stephan Brandt also made it back to score for the Friars.
Qualifying for the Final heat was Josh Willis who swam his
personal best 58.71.
This meet didn’t
stop. In the 100 Breast… best times were swam by Kevin Afonso,
Adam Drago, Chris Sullivan, and Gerard Tully committed to play
football for Stonehill… Congrats Gerard. Qualifying and scoring
points on Sun was the example of hard work, Christian Ruhnau.
He scored major points with his incredible 108.86 swim. Bernil
Carmichael-Lopes made his immediate impact on the league in
Finals when he broke the St. Anthony’s team record and qualified
for States in the 100 breast with a time of 101.66.
Finally, the
Granddaddy of ALL relays… the 400 free relay. We know from last
year how incredibly amazing it is to get one of these babies
into states. Could we do it again? Being the top qualifier,
and just missing the cut on Sat by .39, the pressure was on.
Our 50 point lead off swimmer Mike Forgione looked more than
ready to swim. And swim he did… he lead the relay off with a
49.61 to qualify him in the 100 free at States. Galan finished
off his awesome weekend with a 51.79. Our well seasoned Junior,
Billy Krause also broke the 50 second mark at 49.41. And to
anchor this young and powerful relay was freshman Bernil
Carmichael-Lopes. BCL swam his best time at a 50.34 which once
again sends the Friar relay to States. So, not only do we have
our 1st ever Med. Relay at States, it’s the first
time St. Anthony’s will have TWO relays at boys’ States.
Congratulations to
each and every swimmer and diver. You are all remarkably
amazing. Because of you, we once again reached our team goal of
finishing 3rd place overall in the league. And in
this extremely talented league, that’s a very proud place to
be. Thank you so much to my talented coaching Staff. Coaches
Scott, John and Beth…. You guys are “The Best”. And of course
to our moderator, Dr. C, who does more work than any of you
could possibly know. Special thanks to Don Buckley and Brother
Gary for all your continued support.
-Proud to be called your
Coach,
Coach Dan
Go Friars
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“B”Champs |
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“B” Champs was a tremendous success. Every year, our swimmers we take to B Champs swim with unbelievable intensity. This year was no exception. I couldn’t be more proud of a fantastic group of young men. Plus, being a hysterical group of characters, make them enjoyable to coach. Our meet began with Tim Bloodgood swimming his personal best 50 free at 30.67, followed by Anthony Carvano (must read with Italian accent) swimming his personal best at 28.31. Joe Guistino broke 28 for his first time at 27.73, and Eric Ramirez gained his extra fire from just missing the 50 free cut at 26.49. Andrew Hoey gained a lot of experience at the meet, swimming his best with a 27.64. Drew Cohen dropped another 1.5 seconds in the 100 fly swimming an awesome 112.22. He would later back that up, by gaining the fastest 50 free in the Cohen Family swimming household with a 26.78. All of our 100 freestylers went crazy. It’s definitely true that great swimming becomes contagious. Bryan Foti was blazing, taking off 15 seconds and swimming a 106.63. Brian Neary took off 3 of his own swimming a personal best 114.34. Andrew Hoey sprinted his best again in the 100 free dropping 4 seconds at a 102.96. Anthony Carrrvano (roll the r’s) dropped 2, with a 103.85. Captain John Napoli, nailed all three flip turns to make Coach John proud, and swam his personal best, career best, as monumental as the Mets getting Santana… 114.84. Our meet highlight came at this point, when there were NO “A” Champ qualifiers in the meet until the 100 free. The Friars got one of their own when Eric Ramirez (give that one a good Spanish accent… not RamERez as he was announced) finished his 100 free with a qualifying time of 100.89. At Eric’s finish, I looked over at Coach Scott and said “Would you believe we just got our 27th qualifier into A Champs”. He looked at me with amazement and said… “Man, I remember when we didn’t even have 27 swimmers on the team”. Boy, did he put THAT into perspective. The Friars continued to tear up the pool with all three 100 breaststrokers dropping time. Tim Bloodgood swam the best meet of his career with a 126.74. Jack Martin also with a career best and looked better than ever with a 122.95. Joe Guistino with his 2nd personal best time of the meet swam an incredible 121.24. We finished off our Championship meet with the Medaling 400 free relay of: Andrew Hoey, Anthony Carvano, Brian Neary, and anchoring was none other than THE… John Napoli gaining his second Championship medal of his awesome career. Special Thanks to Senior leader Justin Bertuch and Championship Diver Megg McNally for coming to cheer on their teammates. And also to Steve Hoey for being the Friars designated timer.
Go FRIARS! |
| Results |
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Have the Friar Men improved?
The Friars 2006-7 men's team had 17 swimmers qualifying for "A-Champs."This year, we have 27. |
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| Thank you |
| St. Anthony's
swimming & diving fans raised a total of $1025 for the
Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF). Thank you for all of your donations and support. Non-perishable leftovers will be used at the end of year parties. |
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Friars Men rout St. John the Baptist at HHH It was an overall team effort. Friars swimmers went 1-2-3 in a number of events, including diving, to dominate SJB.
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| Friars vs. Chaminade |
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What a day for the Friars. Since returning from
VA, the Friars are more focused and tighter than ever. Today
they swam their best practice of the season in the morning, and
followed that up with their best meet performance at night. We
looked fantastic!
Chris Hoey swam a personal best to anchor the
medley relay for a first place finish. Krause goes under the
state cut in the 200 IM (again) while Monte on the outside has a
tremendous 'come back' touch-out for extra points for the
Friars. Our divers are preparing their 11 dive lists for
Champs, and under Coach Beth's inculcate teachings, they are
looking awesome!
Krause goes under the state cut in the 100 fly
(again) and Willis..... butterfly? You know it! Sophomore
Forgione (not freshman) is hitting that 51 consistently, and
Christian Ruhnau is a 56 sprinter! Galan continues to be the
Friars top distance freestyler, while Mitchell has the swim of
his life last night with an unbelievable touch-out and dropping
10 seconds off his personal best!
Justin Bertuch nails his turn that yields his
best ever 23.59! Willis takes the backstroke and Brandt
continues to chip away at his best time. Bernil goes under the
state cut in the 100 breast (again), and Monte swims well again
dropping 2 seconds off his season best. The added highlight of
Gerard Tully... he's going to "A" Champs! Tully goes under the
cut in the 100 Breast with a 1:19.99! Congrats. In the 400
free relay, Chuba swims another 57!
Always my favorite way to end a meet, Krause,
Forgione, Galan and Bernil touching the wall first. Our goal is
to make sure we are prepared to swim our best at Champs. The
Friars are looking to do just that. Next Meet:
Sat. Jan 26th at HHH vs St. John's. Be There!
* Great job by Coach Scott and Coach John. Your
hard work shined last night.
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| Greetings from
D.C. Friars Men & Women defeat Paul VI in Virginia.
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Friars get back on track with
a Commanding Win over St. Francis.
Our Friar divers never looked better, and
double winners Billy Krause and Brian Galan led the Friars
to win all but one event.
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| Friars win 3rd straight with an impressive win over a much improved Molloy |
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It was Jake Pisano who-kick started the
Friars with his 1:56.53 win in the 200 free. Next
was our awesome IMer's, led by Billy Krause, who
qualified for States with a 2:03.63. Megg McNally's
hard work paid off taking 1st place in the diving
event. Freshman Stephan Brandt smoked 'em in the
outside lane taking 1st in the 100 free. And the moment
of the night... the 400 free relay win by Friars,
Stephan Brandt, Bryan Galan, Josh Willis, and the
comeback swim by Billy Krause that brought the stands to
their feet. I was most proud of my team when they
huddled together and applauded their relay teammates as
they walked up the deck to return to their team. That's
the camaraderie that great teams are make of.
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| Friar Men open the 2007-8 season with a win over Msgr. Farrell | ||||
| Event winners | Josh Willis | Mike Forgione | Billy Krause | Bernil Carmichael-Lopes |
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Friars Women win 5th consecutive CHSAA Championship.
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