Bridgeport Swimmers Wrap Up Big Weekend At 2011 TCNJ Invitational

Ewing, N.J.-The University of Bridgeport swimming teams wrapped up a great weekend at the 2011 College of New Jersey Lions Invitational on Sunday.  During the three days of competition in the Garden State, Bridgeport men's and women's swimmers won 11 events, set eight school records plus turned in one NCAA Championship automatic qualifying time and over 20 NCAA "B" cuts.  In the final team standings, the Purple Knights finished in third place on the men's side with 654 points and in fourth place in the women's table with 485.5 points.  The host College of New Jersey took first place on both the men's and women's sides with 1321 total points for the men and 1310 total points for the women.

Highlighting UB women's action on Sunday was the strong performance of newcomer, sophomore Maria Trubitsyna (Moscow, Russia).  Maria was at the 2011 USA Swimming National Long Course Championships in Atlanta from Thursday through Saturday to fulfill requirements necessary  to compete in the 2012 Russian Olympic Trials, but she flew to New Jersey on Saturday night, to be available for the for her team on Sunday.  In the opening event of the day, Trubitsyna made her presence known by winning the 1650-yard Freestyle in an NCAA "A" Qualifying time of 16:59.71, which is also a UB women's varsity record.  In the final individual event of the day, she picked up her first of two additional NCAA "B" qualifying times with a 2:05.29 in winning the 200-yard Butterfly, then led off the second place 400-yard Freestyle Relay with a 52.92 100-yard leg to complete a busy weekend.  Also picking up an NCAA "B" cut for was junior Anna Krasnowska (Kedzierzyn-Kozle, Poland) with a 52.97 in the 100-yard Freestyle.

For the UB men, junior Ilkka Hanhineva (Pietarsaari, Finland) got things started on Sunday by racking up two individual NCAA "B" cuts in the 1650-yard Freestyle stopping the clock at 16:06.44 and 200-yard Butterfly finishing in 1:49.29, both are also UB men's varsity records.  Freshman Igor Vulesevic (Zrenjanin, Serbia) grabbed an NCAA "B" time in the 200-yard Backstroke with a 1:52.49, also a UB men's varsity records; followed by sophomore Oscar Pereiro's (Arzua, Spain) 45.48 (First Place) and Junior Krzysztof Wilk's (Krakow, Poland) 46.52 in the 100-yard Freestyle.  In the final event of the night, the Purple Knight quartet of Ruben Gimenez (Burgos, Spain), Wilk, Vladislav Paskas (Zrenjanin, Serbia) and Pereiro narrowly missed the NCAA "A" cut in the 400-yard Freestyle Relay by .25 seconds with a time of 3:01.34, a time that all but assures a trip to the Mansfield, Texas, site of the 2012 NCAA Championships, in March.  Gimenez registered his own NCAA "B" cut with a 45.14 100-yard Freestyle lead off leg on the relay.

The Bridgeport swimming teams finish up the 2011 fall semester schedule with a home meet versus Post University on Saturday, December 10th at 1:00 p.m.  A special feature of Saturday's meet will be sophomore Oscar Pereiro, the 2011 NCAA 100-yard Backstroke Champion, attempting to break the Spanish Galician Province Record in the 100-meter Backstroke.  Come out to the Wheeler Recreation Center Natatorium and cheer on Oscar and his fellow Purple Knights as they pursue excellence in the pool.