Rush-Henrietta honored in upstate New York

As we wind down the 6th annual MaxPreps Football Tour of Champions presented by the Army National Guard on February 16th, our stop tonight brought us to upstate New York and to the Rush-Henrietta (Henrietta, N.Y.)  Royal Comets, outside of Rochester. The weather was a balmy 45 degrees outside which was a welcome number during a hard winter. Things were even warmer inside the gym as it was senior night during the boy's varsity basketball game.

At halftime of the game we were set to honor the Royal Comets football team who finished 90th in the nation in MaxPreps Freeman poll out of over 15,000 teams nationwide! One person missing tonight was the head coach Joe Montesano, who was recently named coach of the year for New York State, as his wife is days away from giving birth to their first child. We wish coach well in his future parenthood.

However, the show must go on and MaxPreps representative Rod Mergardt started the festivities by speaking of the great accomplishments of the Comets team this year who were led by Syracuse- bound senior quarterback Ashton Broyld. Broyld is also a star forward on the Comets Basketball team as well. Mergardt then introduced Master Sergeant Ishmoile Mohammed from the New York Army National Guard who was very proud to present the Army National Guard national ranking trophy. He called up the team and coach Jacobs, who filled in for coach Montesano, and presented coach Jacobs with the hardware. Coach Jacobs thanked the crowd for supporting the team all season which won its first AA championship this year!

Rush-Henrietta Athletic Director Tom Stewart was our gracious host and capped the night off by showing me the plans for the brand new state of the art gymnasium that was just approved to be built on campus and will be ready in 2012. A great new facility to hold the great trophy that was awarded tonight. Congratulations Royal Comets and thank you for a great night!