May 12, 2009

Garden City, N.Y. - PHOTO GALLERY

Adelphi Athletics celebrated its annual End of the Year Athletic Banquet on Wednesday May 6. The event recognized Most Valuable Players from each team including Dance and Cheerleading, Class Awards (Male & Female), Male and Female Athlete of the Year, and Career Achievement Award. The MC's for the evening were S.A.A.C. President and Secretary, Alex Molotsky (Men's Tennis) and Tricia Burns (Women's Tennis). On hand to present the academic awards was Provost Gayle D. Insler. Theresa Ennis and Patrick Figueiredo both received the academic award for male and female senior with the highest cumulative grade point average.

Theresa Ennis (Women's Soccer) is the recipient of the Arvilla Nolan Award. She is a Mathematics major, with a minor in Education and boasts an outstanding 3.85 grade point average. Through her combination of athletic and academic prowess for the fourth consecutive year earned a spot on the ECC Women's Soccer All-Academic Team. Theresa was also named to the National Soccer Coaches Association of America Adidas All-East Region Team. In 2008, she was inducted into the Math Honor Society- Pi Mu Epsilon and this year received a Certificate of Recognition Award at the National Student-Athlete Awards Dinner.

Patrick Figueiredo (Men's Soccer) is the recipient of the Martin Head Award and is among the 44 players named to the NSCAA/Adidas Scholar All-America team. A second-team selection, Patrick is a Biology major, boasting a grade point average of 3.779. He received the 2008 CoSIDA honors. Overall, he is the 10th Adelphi men's soccer player to earn Scholar All-Region honors and the first in the program history to receive Scholar All-American status.

The newest award of the evening, Director of Athletics Award, was presented by Robert Hartwell. This award recognized four student-athletes who have accomplished their personal best. The recipients were: Alda Ribiero, Corey McKee, Samantha Johnston, and Brant Kummerfeld.

Alda Ribiero is on the Women's Tennis team and is the number one singles player and a First Team All-East Coast Conference pick after winning the flight tournament. She only lost two matches all season and has absolutely an outstanding record. As a freshman, she received ECC Rookie of the Year honors and First team All-East Coast Conference honors.

Corey McKee is a freshman from Crescent Canada and placed 16th in the 200 yard butterfly at the Indoor National Championships Festival and became Adelphi's first NCAA qualifier in swimming to take place and score points in the championship meet in the past twenty years or more. This freshman was also named an All-American Honorable Mention for his effort and received 7 All-Conference Awards. He also broke 8 school records (4 individual events and 4 relays).

Samantha Johnston is a senior and is an outstanding dual sport athlete. She is an outside hitter on the Women's Volleyball Team during the fall and an outfielder on the Softball Team during the spring. This year she was very instrumental in helping the team advance to the East Coast Conference playoffs and advance to the NCAA East Regional. This was the second time in programs history. In softball she is in the top ten single season statistics in at BATs, HITs, RBIs, and WALKs. Her career stats are in the top ten for batting average, at bats, runs, hits doubles, homeruns, rbi's, total bases, walks and stolen bases.

Brant Kummerfeld is a senior and has been the key to his team's success as he was named the 2008 Division II PING All-Region teams by the Golf Coaches Association of America and was ranked second in the Northeast and placed second in 11 tournaments last year. This year, in individual success he has registered 11 first-place finishes in 13 competitions and his team is ranked #1 in the NCAA East Region.

Vice President of Student Affairs, Bill Proto was on hand to present the Class Awards. The Freshmen Athlete of the Year recipients were: Erica Devito (Women's Lacrosse) and Mychael Fabio (Men's Track & Field).

Sophomore Athlete of the Year: Kaitlin Carter (Women's Lacrosse) and Thorne Holder (Men's Soccer).

Junior Athlete of the Year: Caitlin Fitzpatrick (Women's Lacrosse) and Casey Cosgrove (Men's Basketball).

Senior Athlete of the Year: Rachel Ray (Women's Lacrosse) and Kevin Durant (Track & Field).

This year, we have been fortunate to award two student-athletes who have showed significant contribution through-out their time here at Adelphi. Ify Anene is the recipient of the Female Athlete Career Award. As a sophomore, she earned 1st team All-Conference honors at the East Coast Conference Championship meet with a 6th place finish. During her junior year, she was crowned ECC individual champion at the Conference mete while helping her team to a first place finish. Ify earned a 79th place overall finish at Nationals. She was also named Junior Athlete of the Year. As a senior, she earned her second straight trip to the NCAA Division II National Championship and placed 60th out of 189 athletes. Her time made her the first finisher from the NCAA's East Region to cross the finish line.

Patrick Figueiredo is the recipient of the Male Athlete Career Award and was honored as the Male College Athlete of the Year by the Nassau County Sports Commission. He is the 2007 and 2008 Atlantic Soccer Conference Player of the Year as well as a 2008 CoSIDA Academic All-American. Patrick is also a three-time first-team All-Conference selection and an NSCAA All-Region selection in 2006 in addition to being ranked among the top 15 in the country in two statistical categories.

Congratulations to Rachel Ray and Patrick Figueiredo on their great achievements! They both received outstanding Athlete of the Year.

Women's Bowling team received a check for $100 presented by S.A.A.C. as they were the team that attended the most S.A.A.C. meetings.