A Sportswriter’s Notebook: White Plains Hockey Wins First Playoff Game

HOCKEY

 

White Plains

 

According to www.section1hockey.com the Tigers advanced to the second round of the playoffs after they defeated Eastchester/ Tuckahoe/ Bronxville (ETB) 4-0 and will play New Rochelle on Tuesday in the next round.

 

“Matt Conroy had two goals, Phil Variano and Brendan McDonough had one. The defense played very well and Chris Stangarone was very sharp. We played New Rochelle once this season and beat them 4-0,” said Tigers head coach Howie Rubenstein.

 

Stepinac

 

Currently the Stepinac Crusaders have a league record of 5-6 on the ice for the 2012-2013 season.

 

“The top four teams made the playoffs. Right now we are in 6th but have a good shot at jumping to 4th with five games remaining. We have two more games against St. Edmund and also play Mount St. Michael, Holy Cross and Xavarian. Our season runs through March 3 and all five games are at ice hutch over the next two weeks,” said Crusaders head coach Michael Henderson.

 

They won their last game over St. Edmund’s Prep by the score of 7-4. The Crusaders took an early 3-0 after the first period and never looked back. Wyatt Zuk led his team by scoring a remarkable four goals in the game. Frank Haklits fired two goals into the net and Rob Sanders added another. Zuk and Sanders each added three assists apiece in the

game. Senior Crusaders’ goaltender Anthony Mensi had 17 saves.

 

BASKETBALL

 

Good Counsel

 

The Cougars first playoff game will be on Monday, February 25^th at home against the winner of the Cathedral/ St. Barnebas play-in game.

 

Stepinac Varsity B Team

 

The Crusaders season came to an end when they lost in the playoffs to Christ the King.

 

“We lost 54-43 to the eventual Champs. Christ the King won the championship and finished 25-2. We finished the season 6-13 in the first year of existence,” said Crusaders head coach Patrick Massaroni. “We were down 43-31 early in the fourth quarter and went on a 9-0 run to cut it to 43-40 with four minutes to play and then went scoreless the next three minutes to eventually lose by 11 points.”

 

Justin Thomas led his team in scoring with 12 points while also pulling down four rebounds in the game. Tommy Keane finished with 11 points, including knocking down three of five shots from beyond the 3-point arc. Joanquin Spencer led the team with 10 rebounds while also scoring 10 points on his own and dishing four assists. Both Spencer O’Toole and Michael Tealan each contributed five points apiece.

 

BASEBALL

 

White Plains

 

In just a few shorts weeks the White Plains Tigers will get a full week of practice and scrimmage games down in Tampa Bays/ St. Petersburg, Florida area. Before the season begins the team has been conducting indoor baseball workouts two days a week in the high school gymnasium.

 

“Preseason workout is going well. Been going for over a month so far on Tuesday and Thursday nights with our pitchers and catchers getting their work then hitting for an hour,” said Tigers head coach Marcel Galligani.

 

While in Florida they will play 11 unofficial games and there were will be five junior varsity players making the journey to Florida according to Galligani.

 

“All of our pitchers will get their innings in and our regulars should come back with about 25 game at bats under their belt,” said Galligani about the experiences his student athletes will receive while in Florida.

 

FOOTBALL

 

White Plains

 

“Odaine Franklyn from the 2011 team signed with New Hampshire and Murilo Rosendo from this year’s team has decided on Pace,” said Tigers head coach Skip Stevens about two of his former players who will be playing college football next year.

 

INDOOR TRACK

 

Over the last couple of weeks there has been a lot of media coverage of Saniya Chong becoming the top scorer in Section 1 history in girl’s high school basketball and come next season she will be able to help the University of Connecticut women’s basketball team remain as one of the top programs in the nation.

 

Despite Chong’s achievements being grand what Mary Cain of Bronxville is doing on the indoor track this season is nothing short of amazing. She might be the best athlete from Westchester in a very long time.

 

Before talking about what Cain did on Saturday night at the Millrose games in the Wanamaker Mile let’s back track a little about Cain’s background.

 

Cain is a junior at Bronxville high school, who last year as a sophomore starting training with the boy’s team and she competed in the 2012 Loucks Invitational Track & Field Invitational at White Plain’s High School and blew away the field in the 800 meter run. During the race she not only set a Loucks record but her time was so low it helped her qualify for the United States Olympic Trials in Oregon. She didn’t qualify for the Olympics in London but she made a strong impression on a lot of people.

 

This fall she made the difficult decision to stop running for Bronxville High School to exclusively train with Alberto Salazar who won three New York City Marathons and one New York Marathon in the 1980’s.

 

When Salazar’s competitive career was over he became a coach and he has trained numerous long distance running Olympians such as Alan Webb, Mo Farah, Galen Rupp and Kara Goucher.

 

One of the difficult things about training under Salazar is now running against professional runners as an amateur instead of running against girls her old age.

 

On Saturday she competed in The Millrose Games, which is the most prestigious indoor track and field meet in the country every winter. Cain was entered in the women’s Wanamaker Mile and she finished second in the race with a time of 4:28.25.

 

Her time was the fastest time ever run by a female high school runner. Cain broke the previous girls high school record that stood for over 40 years a few weeks earlier when she ran a 4:32.78 at the New Balance Games.

 

According to Internet reports Cain will next compete in the U.S.A. National Indoor Championships in New Mexico in early March.