Somers, Carmel, Putnam Valley Had Major Moments in 2021-22

By Ray Gallagher, Examiner Sports Editor @Directrays

It was yet another year of mayhem in the United States of America, where she’s still the greatest country on Earth while quickly morphing into an unrecognizable state of divisiveness #PleaseComeTogether.

The great #MeltingPot is in peril as we speak, so I thank God for the outlets we still have – like the somewhat pure, unadulterated innocence of high school sports – to escape the insanity.

We in northern Westchester and Putnam County had so many great moments to revel in from last fall to this spring, so many memories to cherish, and a fair share of blood, sweat and tears our student athletes put into the cause while cycling out of the COVID-19 freefall.

Going back to the fall of 2021, we had Somers High School – the Examiner’s School of the Year – leading the way, putting a pair of boys’ teams in the state finals, including its NYSPHSAA Class A championship soccer team and its Class A runner-up football team. In my 34 years along the local sports circuit, I can’t recall a time when that’s happened in this neck of the woods, other than that magical 2016 campaign when Somers won state jewels in football and boys’ soccer #AllHailTheTuskers.

Somers soccer Coach Brian Lanzetta and All-American Daniel D’Ippolito (29G, 35A) blitzed the field and guided the Tuskers to their second state title in six years while rookie grid Coach Anthony DeMatteo fell just short of the Tuskers’ second state title since 2016, despite the Plays of the Year from WR “Big Play” Trey Mancuso, who willed Somers past Rye with highlight reel grabs and zig-zagging darts to the end zone.

And if that wasn’t enough for one school, Somers popped our eyes open again this spring when Coach Anthony Nappi’s baseball team reached the NYSPHSAA Class A regional finals for the first time in school history while Somers won its first-ever Section 1 Class A track and field team championship (they had won many in Class B previously) and its girls’ lax team lost in the sectional finals. What a way for Somers’ 19-year Athletic Director Roman Catalino to go out #RomanEmpire.

So, yeah, Somers was the envy of all this school year. Now, if they could just find a way to win a boys’ basketball league title for the first time since 1989 in Coach Chris DiCintio’s upcoming swan song. (They did win the school’s only boys’ hoops sectional title in 1992.)

Nothing had ever ignited the Town of Carmel like its 2021 NYSPHSAA Class AA championship football team did last November. Led by the Examiner-area Coach of the Year Todd Cayea, the undefeated Rams – the Examiner’s Team of the Year – capped the finest season in school history with, perhaps, the most dominant large-school run in the history of the state playoffs, which dates back to 1993.

Sweet justice was served by longtime Cayea, who had his ties to the program severed when the Carmel Board of Education got involved in a 2019 off-field incident that hadn’t the merits of a plum nickel.

The situation turned on a dime, though, when Cayea supporters, thankfully, turned out in droves to get the band back together and restore the coach’s reputation before he took Carmel to the peak of its sporting heights. It was a remarkable turn of events for the red, white and blue patriots of Carmel, a once-in-a-lifetime event spurred by, perhaps, the finest senior class in Rams history. Fresh off the heels of the COVID-19 hysteria, Putnam County witnessed, without question, its finest sporting moment, ensuring its lone state football title.

But that wasn’t where it ended for Putnam County, which saw Putnam Valley’s NYS Class B Player of the Year Eva DeChent lead her then-two-time reigning Section 1 champion Tigers to their first NYSPHSAA Class B girls’ basketball Final 4. State runner-up Waterloo stopped the Tigers dead in their tracks.

 In team sports, nothing matters more than T-E-A-M, but nobody meant more to her team this school year than DeChent. In her junior year, she was the definition of MVP, leading the Tigers in scoring, assists and rebounding while guiding Putnam Valley as far as any sports program (other than their fabulous cheerleading program) had gone since the 2009 boys’ lax team lost to Manhasset in the state semis. That was after the Tigers won their only team state title in school history in field hockey in 2005.

Yeah, I’m getting older each year, but the green grass and high tides are forever when it comes to local prep sports. So much fun to watch them all in action, and many more moments we could have mentioned. Well done, my friends, well done.

SIDENOTES: The game of lacrosse is growing by leaps and bounds. Local heroes – like former Yorktown two-time All-American Brett Makar – are emerging on the national scene as his Maryland Terps were crowned national champions on Memorial Day weekend. Makar will be paying back the game this summer at hometown camps and clinics for sure, but there’s plenty more lacrosse on the local circuit this summer/

As we broke on Twitter late last week: Congrats to my guy Ric Beardsley #UncleRicky – the former Lakeland High and Syracuse University lacrosse All-American and national champion – on being tabbed head coach of the Bergen Catholic Crusaders late last week. Quite the coup for my man Brian Mahoney (of Mahopac High and Siena College fame), the B.C. el presidente. 

BOX LAX: Featuring some of the area’s elite talents, the Hudson Valley Box Lacrosse League kicked off its inaugural season on June 11 at  EJ Murray Rink in Yonkers from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. The 845 Box Lacrosse Club, New York City Lacrosse Club, Dark Side Box Lacrosse Club and the Mahopac Water Panthers challenged one another in a round-robin style tournament in the first of four such outings. Players 18 and up will have at it in family-friendly venues that includes food vendors, music and much more. Subsequent outings are scheduled for June 25, July 9 and July 23. Follow the league on Instagram @HVBLL2022.

The Mahopac Water Panthers will also play at 7 p.m. this Wednesday, June 15 in Mahopac at the Michael Geary Memorial Rink on Route 6, across the street from the firehouse.

RIP Steve “Iggy” Aguado. If you’ve ever been at a primetime Section 1 basketball event, chances are the loveable “Igster” strolled past you with his perpetual smile that may have been encrusted with a bit of mustard from his last hot dog. But we all loved us some Iggy.