The Cabrini men’s and women’s swim team dominated over King’s College and Notre Dame of Maryland this past Saturday, Nov. 8.
The scores came in: Cabrini men over King’s men 132-114, Cabrini women over King’s women 86-23 and Cabrini women over The College of Notre Dame of Maryland women 99-23.
This was the swim team’s first meet at home and overall third meet this year.
“You need a strong desire to win because there are no breaks; you’re in and out of the pool and then it’s whoever gets to the wall first,” Bill Boylan, one of the men’s captains, said.
Even before the Cavaliers were named the winners, excitement for this season, support and sportsmanship was clearly evident.
“I am pumped for the season because we doubled the size of our [men’s] team and brought in a really strong class of freshmen,” Matt McGuriman, sophomore English major and one of the men’s captains, said.
When he wasn’t in the pool competing, McGuriman and fellow teammates were on the sidelines cheering as loud as possible with the firm and ever persistent “GO GO GO.”
Jennifer Manning, assistant coach of the team, is especially excited for the season because her little sister is on the team.
She and her sister, transfer student Kate Manning, grew up swimming together at their summer swim club.
The coach of Cabrini’s swim team, Michael Kernicky, has been Jennifer’s coach since she was 12 years old.
She stated how much she admired her coach and the lessons swimming taught her like time management but she said, “You don’t realize that as a kid.”
She talked about the bond Cabrini’s team shares for one another, giving the example of how the team all chose to sing, the Star Spangled Banner for the meet instead of listening to a recording or just picking one or two people to sing.
“College sports are hard. It’s like a bad breakup but if you can push someone through.,” she said.
Andrea Carabello, junior elementary special education major, mentioned earlier in the meet that when Cabrini won the first race that set the bar high.
“I have won a few races so far but my times have not been as fast as I want them to be. My ideal time is 25.17,” Carabello said.
“It’s not just about teaching them about swimming faster but teaching them life lessons and watching them grow as individuals,” Kernicky said.
Kernicky also sang praises of the fact that this year’s swim team has a good chance of making it to the ECAC’s while throwing out some names of the swimmers he thought could qualify such as Boylan, Manning and Carabello.
“We have the best team this year because every year the team gets better. This team is better than the year before and last years team’s was better than the year before that,” Kernicky said.
Carolyn Teliszewski, mother of swimmer Kyle Teliszewski, said that although her son has been swimming since his freshman year of high school he has really improved in the past two years.
Teliszewski went on to his best-yet college score during the meet. Teliszewski talked about the opportunities the swim team was provided such as a trip to train somewhere exotic over Christmas break.
This year the team is heading to Key West for 10 days.
“It’s not a vacation; they practice every morning at 5 a.m. but it’s nice,” Teliszewski said.
The Cabrini men and women swim team has a meet every Saturday until after finals.
