The Envoy

Oct. 7 episode of “Hawk Athletics.” Anna Chapko’s interview starts at 2:35, and Conor Sullivan’s starts at 16:30.

On their way to the end of the season, the Hawks are soaring to success. Cross country and our women’s tennis team are still enjoying plenty of wins before their CUNYAC playoffs begin, while the men’s team are looking to get their season back on track before the playoffs.

This week, David Horn sat down with two veterans of their respective teams to tell their stories of their journeys to Hunter, and life on and off the pitch.

ANNA CHAPKO

The women’s tennis team had a productive week with a loss to Baruch and a win against Brooklyn. One shining star of both games was junior Anna Chapko.

Chapko recorded a fantastic record against Brooklyn, with an 8-1 win in doubles with partner Julia Aksamentova in No. 1 doubles. She also recorded a 6-6 in both sets in No.1 singles against Baruch’s Kuc Medina.

Chapko’s journey to Hunter started with an email. The Brooklyn native attended Midwood High School. She’s a computer science major and part of the Daedalus program.

“Honestly, I love being a Hawk. It’s great. I’m in the honors program for computer science [Daedalus], and I wanted to be on the tennis team. And I emailed coach [Alex Trezos], and I was like, ‘I want to be on the team.’ He’s like, ‘sure,’ that’s it,” Chapko says.

Chapko talked about her unorthodox relationship with coding. Her father is in coding as well, but she says that in itself didn’t push her toward the career path she wanted.

“I really didn’t get exposed from my dad,” she says.

“I’m realizing that as I take these core requirement classes, I’m like, ‘okay, this is something I want to do, something I don’t want to do,’” she says. “I’m still sticking with AI, but I don’t know if I’m going to stick with video games.”.

Chapko has been very pleased with the tennis team’s season thus far. They’ve been taking shape as a team more often and they show up to every game. She remarks that the team is much more proactive and coaches at other schools are starting to change their strategy to beat them. 

Both CUNY and non-conference opponents have helped the team to improve, she says, but they still need to get over that hump against their old rival: Baruch.

“We do have a chance of beating them. I think it’s all a mindset, the way we get into the game. Because I feel like a lot of us are just scared because we know that they’re good. We know we can get them because the score was 5-4.” she says. “We need one more. If we had one more, we’d have done it. And I think it’s the second doubles. We have a chance in them. We put it together and have our mindset correct. I think we got it for the finals.”

Chapko and the tennis team are focused on winning the CUNYAC championship. Last year, they lost to Baruch 5-2 in a devastating game at UTAC in Flushing.

“If we put our mindset to it, and we now know how Baruch plays, we have a chance in beating them in the finals,”  she says.

Catch Chapko and the women’s team in their game against York and a non-conference game against Sarah Lawrence before the playoffs begin on Oct. 23.

CONOR SULLIVAN

This week brought some more growing pains for the men’s soccer team as they picked up two losses against John Jay and Brooklyn College. In both games, senior Conor Sullivan played the full 90 minutes as center back. 

Sullivan, the third captain for the team, spoke with Horn about the team’s awkward season and their optimism despite the speed bumps.

Sullivan first arrived at Hunter after a year-long spell at SUNY Binghamton. While he went there solely for academic reasons, he didn’t enjoy his time there.

“I had a really miserable time there,” Sullivan says. 

During his time at Binghamton, the Covid-19 pandemic began, which saw Binghamton closed for the Fall semester. Instead of waiting to go back in the Spring, Sullivan decided to take asynchronous courses at Hunter during the fall. When he went back to Binghamton, Sullivan still didn’t feel happy there.

He took a year off and started reapplying to various CUNYs (having initially done so in high school). He had a strong desire to go to a school in New York City. He emailed Hunter with the intent to attend and got a response back the same day.

During his first (or second) semester at Hunter, Sullivan, who was rehabbing from a hip injury, decided to try out for the men’s soccer team despite his doctor’s advice. He promised his doctor that he wouldn’t go, but ended up going the next day anyway.

“I was so bad. It was the first time I kicked a ball in like 14 months and I was super nervous,” Sullivan says. “And I remember asking [the team’  ‘Are you guys any good?’ And they were super offended. And they kept saying, ‘Of course we’re good. We’re NCAA players.’”

Sullivan’s long-time hip injury initially occurred during his sophomore year of high school. He was playing club soccer at Pier 5 in Brooklyn on a rainy afternoon when his classmate came in with a dangerous tackle. The tackle hit his pelvic bone, where Sullivan says he instantly knew something was wrong. His best attempts at sleeping it off didn’t work. 

He continued to play for years after despite the pain. However, the pain eventually increased to the point where he couldn’t even tie his shoes. His mother urged him to go to the doctor.

Ultimately, the doctor found an issue with both of Sullivans’ hips.

Sullivan is still experiencing some issues with his hips that will require another surgery. He’s also a dual athlete who is also an indoor track and field star. He’s made the CUNYAC all-star second team for soccer and first team for track. His first season in 2022 made Sullivan reflect deeply on what he needed to improve as a player. He has not hit his personal goal of breaking the school’s record for indoor track and field. 

He’s a bit annoyed at that. 

“I was really inconsistent and that was something hard to work on, consistency other than just saying to be better. Because some games I would play really well and I was like, ‘I feel like I really belong here.’And then some games I play really poorly and I was like, ‘Maybe I’m not cut out to be an NCAA athlete,’” he says.

Sullivan remarked that his confidence did improve coming into the next season. He played more minutes compared to his first season and regained his pre-injury form. 

“I feel a lot faster,” he says.

Sullivan’s achievements off the pitch include conducting research on behavior this past summer at Mount Sinai Hospital. He says he received the opportunity from his psychology professor who personally asked if he wanted to participate. 

Sullivan also serves as the editor of the sports section for The Envoy, having revived the section after it had been dormant for several years. He met The Envoy’s current editor-in-chief, Nikole Rajgor in a journalism class they had together. He was interested, but at the time, there was no availability for a paid position. Sullivan didn’t mind though.

“I basically told her I would do it for free,” he says.

Despite their rankings in the conference, Sullivan still believes that this team can turn things around and overcome their problems.

“I really do think we’re the best team in this conference by a country mile. And I think the coaches will get mad at me for saying that because we’ve been losing games and they don’t like it when I underestimate teams,” Sullivan says. “But I know the capabilities of this roster. And I think that’s why I’ve been so disappointed until this point of the season. Because I know that these guys are better than this. And I know that I’m better than this.”

Sullivan and his teammates have four more games left before the CUNYAC playoffs begin on Oct. 30.

“I think that on our day, we beat every single team. And it’s just about making that day every day,” he says.

“Hawk Athletics” is a sports show hosted by David Horn airing every Monday at 3 p.m on the Where Hunter College Speaks (WHCS) radio station. In collaboration with WHCS radio, The Envoy breaks down Horn’s weekly show and recaps the latest on all things Hunter athletics.