Picking the best boys basketball player in New York City or best lacrosse player on Long Island is usually a subjective assignment because statistics don’t always tell the story. Big numbers may reflect ball hogs as much as they do talent.
There should be no such issue in track and field, where the numbers are the numbers and it’s merely a matter of sorting out top finishes at the big meets.
Ah, but that hardly gets the job done in New York, where distance divas are more plentiful than the fans in a Tiger Woods gallery, log more highlights than Roger Federer in the fifth set at Wimbledon and earn more awards than the National Honor Society officers on graduation day.
In the course of narrowing the list of the just-completed school year’s clutch female performers to just 10 for all sports, we came up with seven in distance running alone that merited serious consideration.Four ended up making the final cut, and three of them will be back next season.
Let it not be said that New York is lacking talent. Here’s the rundown:
Photo by Christopher Corradino
Emily Lipari, Roslyn
1. Emily Lipari, Roslyn distance running – She won Class A at the state cross country championships with the day's No. 2 overall time and logged 11th place at the Foot Locker national meet in San Diego. On the track, she dominated the state indoor 1,500 by nearly four seconds and earned a championship in the outdoors 3,000 in 9:38.66 as well as second place in the 1,500. On top of that, Lipari capped her indoor season with a 4:47.44 mile to set a state record for juniors and win the title at the Nike Indoor Nationals, then placed fifth at that distance at and ninth over two miles at Nike Outdoor Nationals.
2. Ieasia Walker, Copiague basketball – The 5-foot-7 guard was dynamic on the court, averaging 19.4 points, 8.7 rebounds and 7.4 assists per game as a senior to earn the Miss New York Basketball honor (joining the likes of Tina Charles, Sue Bird and Chamique Holdsclaw) as well as a spot on the Parade All-American team. A six-year varsity player bound for South Carolina in the fall, Walker finished her career with more than 2,000 points for Copiague, which won the New York State Public High School Athletic Association championship.
3. Shelby Greany, Suffern distance running – Second in the state Class AA cross country meet and then seventh in her fourth trip to Foot Locker's national finals, the Providence College recruit was also the champion of the indoor 3,000 meters and second in the 1,500 the same day. Greany finished strong by taking second in the two-mile run at Nike Indoor Nationals with a 3K split of 9:46.44, setting a national record in the 2K steeplechase during the regular season and then winning the event at the NYSPHSAA championships last month at Cicero-North Syracuse.
4. Bria Hartley, North Babylon basketball – You know an athlete is special when she’s just scored 56 goals plus a couple dozen assists in her junior lacrosse season and that isn’t even her best sport. Hartley, who also plays soccer, is a serial head-turner in basketball, the sport in which she was named Gatorade’s New York player of the year this season. She averaged 22.4 points and 5.3 assists for a 19-2 squad this season in a co-starring role with St. John’s recruit Eugenia McPherson and will run the whole show next season with a wealth of scholarship offers in her pocket.
5. Courtney Chapman, Fayetteville-Manlius distance running – The sophomore won the NYSPHSAA Class AA cross country championship by a whopping 33-plus seconds (with the day's fastest time) as F-M took another step toward its third straight national crown. On the track, she was third indoors in a torrid 1,500 meters and seventh in the outdoor 3,000 at the respective state championship meets. In post-season events, she was seventh individually in the Nike Cross Nationals as F-M three-peated and she placed eighth in the mile at Nike Indoor Nationals.
6. Kim DeCesare, Massapequa soccer – Combining size (5-foot-10) and speed, DeCesare is a handful to keep track of on the field. Moving from defense to midfield early in the season, she scored 16 goals with six assists as Massapequa won its sixth straight Section VIII Class AA championship to reach the state quarterfinals. The four-year varsity standout played for a state championship squad as a freshman and was recruited to Duke University as an outside defender who will probably also log minutes at midfield.
7. Kara Moschetti, Baldwinsville lacrosse – The senior attacker posted 10 games with four or more goals, including an eight-goal showing in the Section III tournament opener, and tallied a total of seven times over the course of three games against West Genesee as the two best large-school teams in all of upstate went head-to-head for league and sectional honors. She scored 72 goals and 22 assists in 21 games. Moschetti will attend the University of Richmond in the fall.
8. Olivia Galati, St. John the Baptist softball – Dominant pitchers are a dime a dozen in softball (can anyone say, “Let’s move the circle back four feet . . . “), but the Hofstra-bound ace took it to a new level en route to Gatorade state player of the year recognition this spring. She threw three perfect games, spun 13 shutouts, struck out 260 batters and carried the Cougars (27-2) to their third state CHSAA championship in four seasons by posting an ERA smaller than the Jonas Brothers’ vocal range.
9. Lauren Maksym, Farmingdale lacrosse – A two-time All-American goalie who will continue her career at North Carolina, Maksym was an incomparable last line of defense for the Dalers, who won their first NYSPHSAA Class A championship by posting three-straight one-goal victories in the state tournament. Farmingdale allowed only 7.2 goals per game, and she made 12 saves in her finale to spark a 10-9 victory against Guilderland.
10. Emily Menges, Garden City track and soccer - First-team all-state as a defender and midfielder in soccer, the state champ in the 1,500 meters in the state indoor meet at Cornell and then second in the NYSPHSAA and third in the Federation outdoor 800 on consecutive day. There’s no indication that she’ll attempt the feat, but Menges evokes memories of Stacy Prey, a Brighton star a quarter of a century ago who gave up a promising soccer career as a senior and snared a state cross country title as a senior before heading off to a solid career at Penn State.
Five more who nearly made the cut: Aisling Cuffe (Cornwall distance running), Charlene Lipsey (Hempstead track and field), China Crosby (Manhattan Center basketball), Melissa Kurzdorfer (Lancaster track and field) and Jessie Winans (Afton softball and basketball).