Now it’s time to look over at Rockland and try to guess what’s going to happen over there. Rockland is going to be interesting. There have been two teams that have really been in control of the county for a little while now. The Suffern girls have been on top for a few years now and Ramapo was very impressive last year.

But this season it could be a little different. Both teams aren’t as strong as they were last year. The two teams don’t have as much depth as they did a year ago and the teams’ behind them have gotten better. It should be an interesting day at the armory.

Alright, we’ll start with Westchester because they’re first on Sunday…sorry Rockland – we’ll get to you in a minute.

I’ll also be back a little later to talk about what happened at Millrose. Even though I was unable to attend we’ll spend some time and see what you think about what happened at Millrose tonight.

Okay, now on to the predictions of what I think will happen on Sunday. WARNING – Do not place wagers on what I say. In all likelihood they WILL be incorrect.

I see Ramapo and Suffern received the most votes to win the county title. I’m surprised how few votes North Rockland received. The team did compete without Nick Hughes. The hope was to have him back for counties – now I don’t know if he’s on schedule, but if he is North Rockland will make a run at it. Although I do think it will come down to Suffern and Ramapo don’t count out North Rockland.

I have one last poll on the county meets and this obviously focuses on the Rockland girls. Who do you think will win? Will Suffern retain its title or will North Rockland come away with it? I’ll be off for a few days, so I unfortunately won’t be able to attend Millrose. We will have somone there however. And I will be doing some work from home and posting on the blog. Be sure to check back tomorrow and I’ll have a county preview posted where I’ll talk about some of the stuff that you were talking about – including the start time and Hickey vs. Carrington. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you all Sunday. Oh, be sure to vote!

As I said before, in order to get through the county meets I’ll be changing the polls fairly recently. I guess it’s no surprise really that New Rochelle and Iona Prep both received 32 percent of the vote. Everyone knows this is going to be a close meet. It will come down to a few points, maybe one relay. We’ll see what happens on Sunday.

Now it’s time to move across the river and take a look at Rockland. We’ll start with the boys meet. Who do you think has the best chance of coming away with the title? Ramapo? Or does it lack the depth? What about Suffern? It won the league title over Ramapo. How about North Rockland? It finished third in the league, only 10 points behind.

The armory was host the CHSAA meet yesterday. And while the majority of schools in the meet are not in our coverage are, there are a few schools – Fordham Prep, Iona Prep and Stepinac that we do pay attention too.

That being said – it’s obviously very difficult to judge someone on their times from a team-scoring meet like this one because most athletes are tripling in events, however, there a a few observations I’d like to point out: Read more of this entry »

Make sure you visit the Gameday Central blog to view the candidates for this week’s Gameface! Click here to see all the pictures.

This week’s candidate from the running community is Clarkstown South’s Jessica Tobin. Be sure to log on and vote.

Sorry for the late post, we had a doctor’s appointment to get too. But if you haven’t checked it out, click here to read my article on Chris Carrington’s victory in the invitational mile.

As Carrington said, this was the biggest win of his high school career. Carrington has had a lot of success in cross country and track the last two years, but yesterday’s win was so important. He maintained contact with the first pack for five laps, then he had one burst to get into that first pack at the 1,200 meter mark.

You could tell he was getting ready to move. With 300 meters left he had another burst and he took the lead. As the bell sounded Carrington just took off and finished in 4:19. His goal was to run 4:15-16, but a wain’s a win. The group went out in 2:15, which allowed Carrington to hang back and use his kick to blow everyone away.

Click below to hear some of my other thoughts from the meet:

This is some updated New Balance invitational mile info: Jessica Tobin of Clarkstown South will be running in the mile. However, Caitlin Hudson and Tori Flannery of Bronxville are both out.

For the boys, Julian Saliani of Irvington will be running in the mile. He will be joining Chris Carrington of North Rockland in the event.

In order to hear your opinions on all the county meets next week, I need to change up the poll fairly frequently so we can get them all in. It’s apparent, based on receiving 80 percent of the vote that most of you think Ursuline will win  the girl’s title. I can’t say I disagree, but I wouldn’t completely discount Mount Vernon or New Rochelle.

Next up – The Westchester County boy’s meet. This question will be a little different. Rather than a straight who’s going to win we’ll do what team do you think will surprise some people. Surprise either by winning or a team that people feel might sneak up on some people. As always, feel free to right in your choices.

If you haven’t seen them, the cross country all-state teams are listed, be sure to check them out:

Boys

First team

Joe Whelan, sr., Hamburg

Alex Hatz, jr., Fayetteville-Manlius

Alex Leuchanka, sr., Shenendehowa

Max Straneva, jr., Chenango Valley

Chris Stogsdill, sr., Marcellus

Alex Deir, jr., Honeoye Falls-Lima

Otis Ubriaco, soph., Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake

Demetri Goutos, sr., Saratoga

Paul Merriman, jr., Fayetteville-Manlius

Quinn Raseman, jr., Ward Melville

Read more of this entry »

If you haven’t seen them yet, check out today’s notebooks with leader boards and league wrap-ups. There are four notebooks in today’s paper:

Rockland boys

Rockland girls

Westchester/Putnam boys

Westchester/Putnam girls

It’s time to take a look at the other league meets from over the weekend and try to decipher what happened. Here’s a link to the results so you can check them out.

We’ll start with the most exciting leagues.

League I-B:

I know it’s just the league and the goal is the county title, but Suffern has to feel pretty good about beating Ramapo, 115-107. North Rockland was right there taking third with 105 points.

Here’s the link to view the athletes that were accepted into the New Balance mile. There are two Section 1 athletes – Caitlin Hudson and Chris Carrington. And three athletes as alternates – Julian Saliani, Tori Flannery and Jessica Tobin. I’m a little surprised Tobin didn’t get in just based off of her success in the 3,200.

I don’t know how many of you know, but Gene Dall, the head coach of North Rockland High School track for the past three plus decades and his son Ryan Dall are being inducted into the North Rockland High School hall of fame.

Ryan Dall is currently in the middle of his first year as the track and field coach of Texas A & M, Kingsville. He was a state champ with his dad and former NYS record-holder. Below is the invitation if you would like to attend. I eliminated some of the addresses, but you can contact me at dmarra@lohud.com or Tom Doherty at tommydoherty@optonline.net if you would like to attend.

Congratulations to the Dall family it is well-deserved.

To:    Friends of Gene & Ryan Dall
From:    Tom Doherty
Re:    2009 North Rockland High School Sports Hall of Fame Induction Dinner

On Saturday night, January 24, 2009, the annual induction dinner of the NRHS Sports Hall of Fame will be held at the Italian-American Social Club, 35 Cosgrove Avenue, West Haverstraw, NY 10993.
The cocktail hour will begin at 7:00pm followed by the dinner from 8:00 to midnight. The cost will be $50 for the prime rib dinner and a five hour open bar.

Gene & Ryan Dall, perhaps the most successful “Father-Son” combination in Rockland County and Sections 1 & 9 Track & Field history will be inducted together on this very special night.

Gene has been the legendary Track & X-country coach at NRHS for over 35 years, and Ryan was a State Champion with his dad, and had a stellar collegiate career as both an athlete & now coach.

We would especially encourage the North Rockland, Rockland County, Sections 1 & 9 track communities, and Gene & Ryan’s former teammates, athletes, colleagues, etc. to join them on this night. We would ask your help in “spreading the word” since our e-mail lists are incomplete and time is short.

If you are not able to attend and would like to congratulate Gene & Ryan consider donating to their NRHS Hall of Fame plaques.

Please send the tear-of sheet below to me at the above address as soon as possible, since a very large crowd is expected. Make all checks payable to the NRHS Sports Hall of Fame. Please indicate on the back of the tear-off sheet, the people that you would like to have at your table. (Tables of 10)

Name:_  Phone:__

Address:__

E-mail: __

$ Dinner (# of Tickets__ @ $50)

$ Donation of $25 toward the plaque sponsorships

$ Total check enclosed

The new gameface pictures are up for this week. It’s pretty interesting. There are 8 pictures up, one of which being Maurice Easterling of Stepinac. Click here to check it out and vote.

I will warn you…Will Carter is a Westlake wrestler and he has a bit of red eye going on. I will say he looks possessed. Anyway be sure to log on and vote.

With the league meets, what we did last week and will do again this week, is in the notebooks that come out on Wednesday we will focus on the league results. The problem with the league results and one of the reasons they weren’t published is that the results were inaccurate.

Times or heights and sometimes even individual winners were wrong. And since it happened wih a number of events through a number of different leagues we couldn’t run them becauase I couldn’t figure out the validity of the results. But, like I said, check out Wednesday’s paper and you’ll see a league wrap-up, similar to what we did last week.

However, just because some results were messed up and I’ll be taling about them on Wednesday, doesn’t mean we can’t discuss the importance of the results:

In today’a paper I wrote an article that talks about Fordham Prep’s success yesterday at the Molloy Stanner Games.

Other news from this meet, Anjelique Parnell of Hackley is quickly becoming a top athlete in the section. She jumped 18 feet in the long jump to win and took second in the 55 dash. She is only a junior and while it will be tough for her to beat Jen Clayton in these events, she could definitely make it interesting.

Mike Hickey took fourth in the mile in 4:23. It was his last chance to qualify for Millrose. He ran 4:18 last weekend, but it just wasn’t meant to be. The winning time was 4:16.

The boys long jump just got a little more competitive with the appearance of Maurice Easterling from Stepinac. He jumped 22 feet in the spring in one of his first times jumping and he jumped 21-8 yesterday to take first. The jump would have been over 22 feet, but he took a step backward after landing. He still has a brace on his ankle from an injury he suffered in the football season.

This is only his second week back on the track. I would really watch out for him. His form still needs to be improved. Most times he jumps he comes nowhere close to hitting the board. He will definitely put some pressure on Claudio in the event.

First with the Stanner Games, Mike Hickey and Mike Jennings are seeded pretty high in the mile and Sean Halpin is in the 3,200.

Elsewhere, with the league meets…congratulations to Spring Valley as the team captured its first league title as the team beat Harrison, 142-133. There will be more on Spring Valley next week.

Suffern beat Ramapo, while the girls were able to hold off North Rockland. The Rye girls and Harrison girls also won league titles. The Eastchester boys also took first for the boys. The complete league results can be found here.

I have to head down to the armory right now, but I’ll be back to talk about the league meets and the Stanner Games a little later.

Obviously the meet was pretty exciting. If you didn’t see the article in the paper about Mount Vernon’s two victories, do so NOW!

Anyway, on to the meet, needing only to be in the top six in order to qualify, Fordham Prep played it safe and ran well enough to qualify. And they almost won in the process. The team switched up its order and just finished second.

The Mount Vernon girls ran extremely well. This is a very talented relay team. Even though the school graduated a lot of talent last year – including Sasha Richards – it has not lost a step. The boys on the other hand had to hold off a late charge from New Rochelle. But the Knights had an early lead and were just able to hold off New Rochelle. I will purposely choose not to relive my predictions I had on last night’s meet.

Rockland had some tough luck. Ramapo and Suffern both ran some great times, but running against Newburgh is unfortunate. Normally Newburgh doesn’t show up to this meet, but rumor was it wanted to because they were running at the armory. Suffern had a good squad and Ramapo is the defending Millrose champs. It’s too bad neither one of those teams gets to perform at MSG. Any one else have any thoughts about last night?

Late Update: Mount Vernon boys and girls both won. Newburgh beat Ramapo in the boys and Suffern in the girls. However, Ramapo may still get into Millrose based on what they ran (3:23) last night and the fact that it won the relay last year.

Update (7:38): After trailing Ursuline for the first two legs, Mount Vernon exploded to the finish line as the team took first in 3:56.54.

Fordham Prep took second in the CHSAA 3,200 relay in 7:55.11. Farrell ended up winning in 7:54.73. Farrell needed a 1:54 anchor leg to win. Fordham still qualifies, but it has top be disappointing, considering the team had the lead most of the race. I’ll be back with more a little later.

As for Westchester, I don’t see anyone beating the Mount Vernon girl’s 1,600 relay team. From what I’ve seen this group is too good. It has two of the best runners in the county with Tanaya Yarde and Breanda Crump. I would imagine New Rochelle could challenge them, but I don’t think the Huguenots have enough depth in the running events this season to top Mount Vernon.

The boys’ race should be a lot closer. I like New Rochelle’s chances and it has the depth to perform well. I don’t know exactly who’s running in it, but I would imagine Aki Bajulaiye, Ruben Barajas, Deon James and I’m not sure who the fourth would be. Maybe Andres Montalvo? I don’t think Chris Rones would run it.

The problem with New Rochelle is that the team doesn’t really have 400 runners. Most of those mentioned run either longer or shorter distances. I would watch out for Mount Vernon. The team took seventh at Hispanic in 3:28.52. New Rochelle’s season-best is 3:29.63. It will come down to which team has the better anchor leg. Should be a good one.

We have a new Gameface up and you can check it out by clicking here. Again, there are more track athletes on there, so let’s try and get some winners. Brittany Brown from Pelham is a nominee this week.

First off, with the league meets…normally we don’t cover them. There will be some info in the paper about them tomorrow and I’m going to talk about them in a minute below. While there was football on Sunday, I do get a couple of hours off every once in awhile. And without Eric this season it makes it tougher to get all the info up in a timely manner, so I ask you to bear with me every once in awhile. I’ll do my best to write as much track stuff as I possibly can, but always feel free to post your thoughts and what you want to talk about. This blog is for you, so if you want me to talk about something let me know.

That being said, let’s take a look at the leagues:

Some info for all you folks about Millrose:

I’ll start with the race all you care about – the CHSAA 3,200 meter relay. I’ll make this quick – I think Fordham Prep had the best 4×8 relay team in the spring and I think they ran somewhere around 7:52 on Saturday to take second. Watch out for this team.

I’ll go over to Rockland next – Suffern will have the two Claytons, Christy Goldmann and Faith Consiglio as its four runners. Shelby will not be moving down to the 400. The team just missed out last year to Pine Bush who will be returning the same four runners. Throw into the mix Newburgh and that could pose a bit of a problem for Suffern.

Speaking about Newburgh – Ramapo, who won the relay at Millrose last year will have a tough task to repeat if Newburgh wants to qualify. Newburgh has already run 3:19 this year. They didn’t show up last year, but with all the teams competing at the armory, Newburgh apparently is interested in competing. This could be very interesting for some of the Rockland schools, especially Ramapo. I’ll talk about Westchester tomorrow. Let me know what you think…

Here are some results/highlights of the day’s performances (in no particular order):

• Chris Rones took fourth in the 55 hurdles in 7.72


• Wayne Seaton and Bruce Grant of Fordham Prep finished right behind him


• Claudio Delli Carpini set a new personal best in the high jump as he jumped 23-3 1/2. The kid that won – Jordan Hall – jumped 23-6 right after Claudio jumped to winHe also false-started in the hurdles and was DQ’ed. FYI – I hate the one false start and you’re out rule – especially in high school.


• Zach Keefer of Fordham Prep took fourth in the invitational 400 in 49.52.


• Mike Hickey took seventh in the invitational mile in 4:18.70.


• Aaron Konigsberg won the pole vault clearing 14-0.


• Jessica Tobin finished fourth in the 3,000 in 10:30.21.


• Jen Clayton won the long jump in 18-8 1/2. She wasn’t happy, but it’s still a good distance, especially after competing in three meets this season. Anjelique Parnell took second in 17-10 1/4 and the Hackley junior finished fifth in the 55 in 7.37.


• Janelle Clayton took second in the high jump for the second straight day. She cleared 5-6 today.


• Breanda Crump took sixth in the invitational 400 in 57.44.


• Charlotte Pope took fourth in the shot put throwing 38-7.

I know I need to put these links up a little earlier, but I guess it’s better late than never. I was at the SMR meet last night, and again Suffern looked strong. The article in today’s paper, in case you haven’t seen it, focuses on the Suffern quartet – Shelby, Christy, Janelle and Jen. The four of them have had an incredible run at Suffern.

The team has graduated a lot over the past few years, but those four athletes have been the constant. Each one is crucial to the success of the team. Jen and Shelby may get most of the attention, but the team doesn’t win all those titles without Janelle and Christy.

Oh man, what a day. Sorry I would have let you know about the notebooks earlier, but with the ice and then the SMR meet tonight it was a very busy day.

Here’s the link to the Westchester/Putnam notebook. Even though Fordham Prep is still holding onto the top spot in the rankings, I’m giving the edge…right now…in the county to New Rochelle over Iona Prep. Here’s the link to the Rockland notebooks. Ramapo is still number one, but Suffern and North Rockland are right behind. The county meet could be a lot closer than it was a year ago.

There was a question about the Section 1 athletes that will be competing in the invitational heats at Hispanic Games this weekend. Here are the links where you can view the girls and boys invitational and heat lists.

As for the invitational races, this is what I’d keep an eye on:

Breanda Crump, from Mount Vernon is in the 400. This will be interesting because the senior has already set the section record in the 600 this season. I always find 600 runners interesting. That is such an in-between event. You don’t know if they are better going up to the 800 or down to the 400. I guess we’ll see on Saturday. Joining her will be Iheich Ohia-Enyia from Saunders.

Katie Sullivan will be competing in the invitational mile.

As for the boys, Zach Keefer and Carlos Petrovich of Fordham Prep will be competing in the invitational 400. Also competing in the event will be Brandon Hill of Peekskill.

There are no Section 1 athletes in the invitational mile, however, Mike Hickey, Sean Halpin and Mike Jennings are all seeded very highly in the mile.

We have a new gameface up. Be sure to click here and check it out. For track athletes, we have Fordham Prep’s Jourdan White, so you should definitely go on and vote for him.

I was over at the armory yesterday watching some catholic schools mixed with a few Section 1 schools compete. My article talks about how Sean Halpin’s 1:53 final leg in the 3,200 relay helped Iona Prep take first in 8:07.0.

I’ll be back a little later with some more thoughts on the meet. Also, I don’t know how many of you know, but there is a Section 1 website that has records, top 10 lists, leaderboards and a lot of other info. I go on it and it’s pretty good. If you want to check it out, click here.

I’m back from my move. I might try and upload some pictures from my new apt. a little later. But before it gets too late, I want to talk about the West Point Invitational that took place on Tuesday.

One thing that has nothing to do with the performances, but what I was a little surprised about was the lack of Section 1 schools and athletes in general. Last year when I covered the meet I felt as though there were a lot more athletes and a lot more from the area. I didn’t think that was the case this year. Maybe it was because it was on a Tuesday or maybe because it’s right after Christmas or schools are trying to cutback, but I felt as though there were a lot more people there last year.

Anyway, onto my thoughts from the meet: