Fresh!

BY CHUCK SLATEREXCLUSIVE TO NORTH COUNTY NEWS + VIEWS    Pitching, as the saying goes, is 90 per cent of baseball. That is why Mahopac’s Chris Miller was 100 per cent concerned early this spring, heading into his fourth season as the varsity head coach.      Miller has consistently turned out clubs with winning records but the 2011 squad was only 10-9, then lost in the first round of the Class AA playoffs.      And then four of his top five pitchers graduated. Only senior right-handed co-captain Matt Bass returned.      “When you graduate that many arms,” Miller said, “you kind of hope young pitchers give you some success. But you can’t expect them to step right up; they’re going in with a little nervousness.”

BY CHUCK SLATEREXCLUSIVE TO NORTH COUNTY NEWS + VIEW As with John Jay High (profiled in this space previously), Somers High also has a highly successful boys golf team – 13-2 heading at this writing – with an upfront contribution from a surprising source, an eighth grader. Christian Cavaliere, all of 14, plays No. 2 (as does John Jay sophomore Nicole Morales) and likewise has the best average on his team by a small margin over the No. 1, Chris Malisse. Both Tuskers are on track to compete in sectional play beginning May 14.      Malisse, a junior who was No. 2 last year, had heard about the young golf talent from his friend and fellow junior, Carly Cavaliere, the older sister.      “She told me he was really good,” related Malisse, who took a cautious wait-and-see attitude. “Then when practice started, I saw Christian play and I thought, ‘Wow, he really is good.’ ”

BY CHUCK SLATER      "Lou Quinn gave me a great gift," says John Jay boys golf coach Ray DiStephen.     The gift is the current John Jay golf team. It may well be the best in the area and remains undefeated 11-0 in Section 1 competition. Quinn, despite a highly successful 2011 season, decided to end his tenure as golf coach and turned the reins over to DiStephen.     Seven of Quinn's 11 golfers graduated last June but a solid nucleus returned and the newcomers proved unexpectedly good.

 BY CHUCK SLATER Yorktown High has a rich and proud baseball heritage. Sean Kennedy, coaching the Huskers’ varsity for a 10th year, had a string of 15-win seasons from 2004 through 2008 followed by highly successful records the next two seasons. Then last year the team went 3-17.

BY CHUCK SLATER      There were 12 minutes and 26 seconds left to play on the recent Friday the 13th of April. In its most important early-season matchup, the Fox Lane girls’ lacrosse team trailed Yorktown by two goals – the same Yorktown that had defeated it in the Class B section championship game last season. Fox Lane captain Sammy Jo Tracy, coming back from a herniated disc in her lower back which cost her most of the pre-season, was scoreless, tired and hurting.      So all Tracy did was put in three goals in those closing minutes. Fox Lane 10, Yorktown 9. The first goal was a highlight-reel, behind-the-back shot.      “Physically, I’m not close (to top form),” Tracy said afterward. “I still have a lot of pain but a captain has to step up. And I’m getting better every day.”

BY CHUCK SLATER 4/9/2012  --  Finding a top-flight distance runner, any high school track coach will tell you, is not an easy task. Get one every few years and you’re doing very well. For small schools, such an occurrence is less frequent. So how to explain two standout distance runners on Carmel High’s 30-boy track team?  “For our small-school program,” says co-coach Harold Cargain, “it’s amazing.”  Indeed, junior Eric Holt and freshman Benito Munoz are amazing. Holt, a dogged runner who often leaves his rivals gasping through mid-race pressure, has run a 4:17 mile.

 BY CHUCK SLATERCould this be the year, the breakthrough? Even Sharon Sarson has to wonder, especially after two opening lacrosse victories by a 32-14 aggregate. Sarson, directing girls field hockey and lacrosse teams at Lakeland/Panas for years, is one of the very best coaches ever in Section 1. When her girls won the state field hockey championship this past fall, it was the sixth state crown her team had claimed in the sport. This is tops among high school team coaches in Westchester, Rockland and Putnam counties. Season-record-wise, she has been just as successful in lacrosse – except her teams have never won a state championship. Her lacrosse squads have won 10 section titles – the last five in a row, four regional crowns and four times have reached the final four of the state championships. Last spring, her 16-3-1 squad lost in the state semifinals.

By Chuck Slater   March 29th, 2012 --  You are a local high school batter facing Somers. On the pitching mound, 60 feet 6 inches away, is its junior ace, J.T. Genovese. He is 6 feet 7 ½ inches tall, weighs 220 pounds and, with his long arms, the ball is coming upon you from a distance of perhaps 55 feet. And it is coming upon you from upwards of 85 miles an hour.      A bit daunting, eh?      “He is definitely tough to hit,” says Somers’ Joe Tomasulo, a .427 batter last season who must face Genovese in practice and has just about the best vantage point to see him all game as a second baseman. “His ball tails. He has a good fastball with some velocity on it.”      He also has a very good changeup, as Joe Wootten, Somers’ highly successful veteran coach, point s out. And now, just to add to a batter’s challenge, Genovese has been mastering a slider he plans to unveil this season. “It’s coming along pretty well,” he reports.

BY CHUCK SLATER      In high school, many varsity athletes perform in two different sports. But when it comes to superstars, it is not so common. Long-term devotion to a sport is needed to reach an elite level, thus two-sport superstars usually accomplish that feat in related activities: indoor and outdoor track, field hockey and lacrosse.      So how does one explain Yorktown senior Eric Cooley? As a 6-3, 240-pounder, he was all-state this past fall while playing defensive nose guard and offensive guard. Taking off a few pounds now, he is a 6-3, 225-pound lacrosse defenseman preparing for his final undergraduate sport as an all-county returnee.

By Chuck Slater      This mildest of winters is heading into its final inning. Meanwhile, area high schoolers have broken out the bats and balls to prepare for their first inning.      Anticipation is everywhere. But for Kennedy Catholic’s senior softball star Ailish Hogan, the anticipation has a bittersweet tinge. One of the finest hitters of the bigger roundball in North County history, Hogan is headed for Lafayette College and probable stardom at a new level. This is the last school season she will ever play with her mother, Pat, as her coach.      “Having my mother as a coach was obviously one of the best comforts for me,” said the youngest of Patricia Hogan’s four daughters.      In the first three seasons playing for JFK and her mom, Ailish – it’s Irish for Eileen – has a combined .507 batting average, a .573 on-base percentage and an .887 slugging percentage. In leading the Gaels to their league championship as a junior, she drove in a hard-to-believe 58 runs in 19 games – as a leadoff hitter!     “I bat her leadoff because she gets on base so often,” said Pat Hogan, “and with her speed she often turns hits into doubles and doubles into triples. Whatever base she was on, we’d have a good bunter up next and it usually meant an early run.”

By Chuck Slater      When the Ossining girls routed Lourdes, 79-48, at the County Center last Sunday to win the Section 1 championship, they raised their record to 22-0 and also raised a lot of questions heading into the regional final at Pace on Friday (March 9). Like, just how good is this young club and were does it rank among the area’s all-time best?      “They are certainly the best team I’ve ever had,” said Ossining coach Dan Ricci. “As to an all-time ranking, well, there’s a ways to go yet.”      Meaning the regional final and, hopefully, the state championships.

BY CHUCK SLATER      There are four leagues which comprise Section 1 high school bowling. Amongst them, they are sending a dozen individual bowlers – six boys and six girls – to the state tournament in Elmira this weekend. Three boys and three girls qualified automatically by having the highest averages over the season across the four leagues. The other three boys and three girls earned their spots by outscoring a large field in the sectional championships at Cortlandt Lanes in mid-February.      Take a bow, local bowlers. Fully half of the dozen call the North County area home.

BY CHUCK SLATER How much does Mahopac senior Steven Savo love the shot put and competing in it? Consider this:      Savo, who is the Section 1 favorite in the upcoming state qualifying competition, set his school record with an indoor toss of 48 feet 8 inches as a junior. But come the outdoor season, his constant practice and devotion to weight lifting – he can power-lift 275 pounds -- led to an injured right wrist. Rest it, no throwing, the doctor said.      So outdoors, he competed left-handed!      “I didn’t win anything but I could still throw 35 feet and get some points for the team,” he said.      But in the county meet, his 35s were getting him nowhere. In frustration and against doctor’s orders, he took a lone right-hand throw, with a sore wrist and without warm-ups or practice. Bingo! The 12-pound iron ball arched out to 45 feet, good for second place overall.      “That’s Steven,” said Mahopac track coach Adam Fetzer. “You don’t see kids like him very often. Track is mainly an individual sport; he wants to win but also wants the team to succeed.”      And is willing – nay, eager, -- to work hard at it.

BY CHUCK SLATER Most of the better local high school hockey players have a special moment they can talk about. The big goal that won a game for Yorktown. The big save that preserved a game for Fox Lane. Brewster’s Joe Wegwerth can talk about the big goal against Russia, that wrist shot from the face-off circle.

By Chuck Slater      Swimming, any coach or active competitor will tell you, is a sport of repetition. Start young, then practice day after day, stroke after stroke, lap after lap, clocking after clocking. Some coaches even frown on full weekends off, much less extended vacations.      How then does one explain Ossining senior Evan Olin being the best high school swimmer in he North County? He took a whole year off.      “My parents got my brother and me into swimming when I was about 4 and I also played a lot of other sports,” Olin related. “And when I was 9, I gave up swimming.”      For a whole year. No practice, no laps, etc.

BY CHUCK SLATER Peekskill coach Agnes Travis is on a roll with team including son Brett.      It’s not easy for a mother to say no to her sons – which is a big part of the reason that today Peekskill High is the surprise leader of the Northern Interscholastic Bowling League.

BY CHUCK SLATER      Raegan Knox, the best girls high school basketball player in the area not named Saniya Chong, has a special advantage in all her distaff match-ups for John Jay.      Nothing an opponent throws at her - and there's plenty of double-teaming and close contact applied to the 5-8 shooting guard who is averaging 24.6 points - is as tough as what she encountered on the driveway court in her home.      The family pick-up games included her 6-2 father Ronald, who was all-state at Byram Hills; her 6-4 brother Ron, a John Jay star who then played at Union College, and her three-years-older brother Colin, 6-3 and a high scorer for John Jay when Raegan was a freshman star for the Cross River school.      Did they take it easy on little sister?  Not quite.     "We treated Raegan like another brother," Colin said.  "She got hit, she got knocked around.'