By John Schiano
MaxPreps.com
The first state championships of the school year will be determined this weekend as finals take place in cross country and girls tennis, with regional tournament action also capping the boys volleyball and gymnastics seasons.
On top of that, boys soccer, girls soccer, field hockey and girls volleyball all have state quarterfinals action scheduled.
Here’s a preview of the two full-fledged championship events:
Cross Country
The 59th annual New York State Public High School Athletic Association cross country championships are scheduled for Saturday at Sunken Meadow State Park on Long Island, which most recently hosted the event in 2002.
The only returning individual champions are Alex Deir of the Honeoye Falls-Lima boys in Class B and Emily Lipari of Roslyn in the Class A girls.
Among the 2007 boys team champions, Shoreham-Wading River (Class B), Newark Valley (C) and Beaver River (D) are favorites to repeat. Among the girls, two-time defending national champion Fayetteville-Manlius (Class AA) and Burnt Hills (A) are rated as favorites to repeat, and Greenwich is a heavy favorite in D after winning the C championship last fall at Norwood-Norfolk and dropping down in 2008 based on enrollment.
The boys Class AA team race figures to be the most competitive of the day as Shenendehowa and Fayetteville-Manlius fight it out, led by Alex Leuchanka and Alex Hatz, respectively, though any of approximately 10 boys could come away with individual honors. Leuchanka placed fourth a year ago while leading Warwick to team honors and transferred to Shen over the summer.
The Class B boys race could be the most interesting clash of the day. Deir is the defending champion, but Chris Stogsdill of Marcellus beat him at the McQuaid Invitational in September, and Bobby Andrews of Shoreham-Wading River will be competing on what amounts to his home course.
Plattsburgh Seton Catholic standout Mike Champagne could win the boys Class D title. His sister, Mary Kate, was a three-time champion at the meet from 2005-07.
The major suspense in the girls team races has to do with how low F-M, Burnt Hills and Greenwich can go in team scoring. TullyRunners.com, which follows the state scene closely, projects all three squads to score in the low 20s.
F-M won with just 23 points a year ago and is chasing the ghost of Saratoga’s 2004 team, which won with 18 points that year in the meet at Chenango Valley. Saratoga, which also won with 18 points at Mt. Van Hoevenburg in 1998 and 19 at Newark in 1993, is good enough to score in the low 40s this weekend and still not come close to the Hornets, whose Courtney Chapman and Hannah Luber are threats to win individual honors.
The Class A race is likely to produce some of the day’s best times as Lipari attempts to hold off Samantha Roecker of Burnt Hills once again, with Aisling Cuffe (Cornwall) and Danielle Winslow (Queensbury) also coming off exceptional seasons.
The Class B team title is up for grabs between three-time defending champion East Aurora and a very young Pearl River team that last weekend gave coach Dan Doherty an amazing 30th consecutive sectional championship (the first five in Section IX and the rest in Section I).
Seton Catholic’s Anna Rabideau is expected to compete for a spot in the top 10 in just her first season of running cross country. She’s been a two-sport athlete this fall, also playing soccer for the Plattsburgh school.
Girls Tennis
The annual NYSPHSAA girls tennis championships will be contested Saturday through Monday at the Eastside Racquet Club in Manlius, outside of Syracuse.
Hauppauge junior Jennifer Kellner will be making the transition back to singles. Kellner, who has qualified for the state tournament every year since seventh grade, won the doubles championship a year ago alongside Katherine Hanson, who’s now playing for Stony Brook University. Before that, Kellner was all-state in singles three consecutive years for coach Chris Messina.
Kellner is a bit of a potential role model for Kara Caulfield of Sayville. Caulfield qualified for the meet in singles a year ago, winning a first-round match, and is now switching over to doubles alongside Jordan Lite, herself a doubles qualifier a year ago at Eastside Racquet Club.
St. Francis Prep’s Shinann Featherston won the singles championship last November over Ashley Miller of Valley Central after her fourth consecutive Mayor’s Cup title, and is now attending the University of North Carolina.
With Featherston gone, Olga Khmylev of Williamsville East is the top returning player in the singles draw. She dropped a 6-3, 6-0 match to Featherston in the 2007 semifinals.
Matches begin Saturday at 9 a.m. with the first two rounds of the singles and doubles draws, followed by the first round of the consolation brackets. On Sunday, quarterfinal action starts at 9 a.m., followed by the semifinals.
Medal matches, three each in singles and doubles, on Monday also begin at 9 a.m.
Football: Seven Head-To-Heads Between Unbeatens
Football is down to sectional finals for the regions that compete in the NYSPHSAA tournament, and only seven games this weekend feature matchups of teams with 9-0 records:
* Class AA, Section 6: Orchard Park vs. North Tonawanda at Ralph Wilson Stadium, Friday, 8:30 p.m.
* Class A, Section 2: Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake vs. Bishop Maginn at Colonie High School, Saturday, 7 p.m.
* Class A, Section 5: Aquinas vs. Victor at PAETEC Park, Friday, 8:30 p.m.
* Class C, Section 3: Bishop Ludden vs. Westmoreland at Carrier Dome, Saturday, 11 a.m.
* Class C, Section 5: LeRoy vs. Oakfield-Alabama at PAETEC Park, Friday, 6 p.m.
* Class D, Section 3: Dolgeville vs. Watertown Immaculate Heart at Carrier Dome, Friday, 7:30 p.m.
* Class D, Section 6: Maple Grove vs. Clymer at Ralph Wilson Stadium, Friday, 6 p.m.
Elsewhere, playoffs are set to begin in the organizations that do not compete in the NYSPHSAA football event.
On Long Island, Seaford (8-0), the last unbeaten Nassau County squad, plays Mineola in the Section VIII Class IV quarterfinals. Section XI’s remaining unbeatens – William Floyd in Division I, Riverhead in II and John Glenn in IV, host Sachem East, West Babylon and Shoreham-Wading River, respectively.
The PSAL playoffs begin Saturday at noon with eight games. Staten Island Port Richmond (9-0), fresh off snapping the 21-game winning streak of defending champion Staten Island Curtis, 42-34, gets a home game against Thomas Jefferson of Brooklyn.
In the CHSFL, Iona Prep (9-0) is the only team with fewer than two losses in the league AAA quarterfinals, and plays host to Mount St. Michael on Saturday at 1 p.m. in New Rochelle.
John Schiano, who has written about high school sports in western and central New York for more than 25 years, covers New York for MaxPreps. He may be reached at johnschianosports@gmail.com.
