Ah, so many champions, so little space.
With the 2009-10 school year in the books, we’ve taken on the task of looking back on the nearly 30 championship sports for boys and girls in order to identify New York’s most memorable scholastic teams of the year.
Winning a championship isn’t mandatory in order to make the list, though it certainly helps. But memorable storylines, shocking finishes and distinguished casts of characters also carry some weight in this compilation.
Deshanaro Morris joined his team for the coin flip vs. Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake.
Photo by Mike Janes
1. Sweet Home (Amherst, N.Y.) football – Go ahead and claim you didn’t choke back tears at both ends of an amazing story arc that began with Deshanaro “Day Day” Morris suffering a paralyzing injury in a car wreck after the 2008 season and then summoning the strength to walk across the stage last month to accept his diploma.
An all-state pick as a junior, the linebacker/running back was supposed to be the centerpiece around which the Panthers rebuilt in their bid to defend the NYSPHSAA Class A championship. Playing without their two-way star mattered not one bit on the field, and Morris’ presence provided the emotional lift off of it.
First-year starting quarterback Pat McMahon and superb wideout/defensive back D.J. Nettles stepped up in a big way, sharing state Class A player of the year honors as Sweet Home beat Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake (Burnt Hills, N.Y.) in the final at the Carrier Dome for the second straight year to cap a 13-0 season.
2. West Islip (West Islip, N.Y.) lacrosse – The almanac says March is supposed to come in like a lion and leave like a lamb. Well, these Lions looked like lambs March 31 in a shocking 13-12 loss to Sachem North (Lake Ronkonkoma, N.Y.) in overtime to start defense of their state championship.
Three days later, they posted a 10-7 decision over a quality Chaminade (Mineola, N.Y.) team, and West Islip never looked back. No one else came within three goals the rest of the season, and West Islip steamrolled three opponents in the state tournament by a combined 46-16 margin to defend. Along the way, attack sensation Nick Galasso picked up career point No. 500 and the inaugural MaxPreps national player of the year award.
3. Fayetteville-Manlius (Manlius, N.Y.) cross country – Try imagining U2 without Bono or the Lethal Weapon movies minus Mel Gibson. Sure, you’d still watch. But you would do so with lowered expectations. That sums up F-M once the coaches opted to shut down Alex Hatz in October as he worked to regain his form in the aftermath of surgery in August.
In a state as deep in distance running talent as New York, losing your sub-4:15 miler should be a death sentence. Instead, the Hornets pulled together and earned a NYSPHSAA Class AA championship as Brendon Farrell, Paul Merriman and Mark McGurrin all placed in the top 20.
They capped off the season with a 10th place showing in the prestigious Nike Cross Nationals in Portland, Ore., and the Wisconsin-bound Hatz put together stellar indoor and spring track seasons to cap his scholastic career.
4. Jamesville-DeWitt (DeWitt, N.Y.) basketball – The Red Rams fell short of a Federation championship, but their third straight NYSPHSAA Class A championship was a finely crafted integration of the past and future. Senior guard Lamar Kearse, the link to past backcourt stars Brandon Triche and Alshwan Hymes, ran the show during a 25-1 season.
The muscle end of the operation, 6-9 DaJuan Coleman, has two seasons left and will team with 6-6 classmate Tyler Cavanaugh as J-D goes for four in 2011.
5. Newburgh Free Academy (Newburgh, N.Y.) soccer – If you’ve followed the World Cup, even just in passing, then you understand just how fickle the sport can be; the Italians and English were sent home early following relatively minor mistakes.
The Goldbacks caught no breaks down the stretch but persevered and won the NYSPHSAA Class AA championship anyway. They had to win a play-in game just for the right to meet unbeaten Arlington in the quarterfinals, then had to take on Shenendehowa minus brothers Alex Bramall and Nick Bramall (combined 35 goals), sitting out suspensions for accumulated yellow cards.
Coach Matt Iorlano’s charges beat Shen 2-0, then rallied past defending state champion Brentwood (Brentwood, N.Y.), led by the superb Andrew Jean-Baptiste, 2-1 in the final with two goals in the last 16 minutes in Oneonta. St. John’s recruit Alex Bramall blasted home the winner with five minutes to go, sewing up Gatorade player of the year honors.
Five near-misses for the list: Manhasset (Manhasset, N.Y.) lacrosse, Garden City (Garden City, N.Y.) football, St. Anthony's (Melville, N.Y.) football, John Glenn (Elwood, N.Y.) wrestling, Suffern (Suffern, N.Y.) baseball.
Girls
1. Fayetteville-Manlius (Manlius, N.Y.) cross country – Eating just 74 points at a prestigious meet like the Nike Cross Nationals, where every team in the field is a state champion or at least close, was impressive enough to merit consideration for New York’s top sports outfit in 2009-10. The fact that it was F-M’s fourth such title in a row in Portland, Ore., was even better.
But what really put the Hornets over the top is what transpired a few weeks earlier at the NYSPHSAA championships at Plattsburgh State. Not only did junior Courtney Chapman, senior Molly Malone, freshman Jillian Fanning, senior Mackenzie Carter and sophomore Katie Sischo cross the line consecutively. They did so ahead of everyone else in the Class AA field.
Their perfect score of 15 was a first in state history and possible a last for New York, where the depth in distance running makes such domination unimaginable.
2. Rockville Centre South Side (Rockville Centre, N.Y.) soccer – You think the Cyclones don’t have incentive to win their sixth NYSPHSAA Class A championship in seven years next fall? Doing so would make South Side soccer New York’s all-time champion of champions with 16 titles, one more than West Genesee boys lacrosse.
The ’09 edition was as good as just about any in South Side history, rolling up a 17-0-2 record culminating in a 6-0 rout of Greece Arcadia in the state final in Cortland as University of North Carolina recruit Crystal Dunn scored three first-half goals and four for the game.
3. Garden City (Garden City, N.Y.) lacrosse – Staying with the champion of champions theme for a moment, the Trojans may have pulled off a New York first this spring en route to their fifth straight Class B title and 11th in the 16 years of the state tournament: They beat two other state champs – Class A Farmingdale and Class C Shoreham-Wading River – during the run-up to the postseason and finished the year 21-0.
The final four was nerve-wracking as Garden City edged Canandaigua 16-15 and then rallied from five goals down in the first half to beat Fox Lane 20-10 in the title game on the strength of Caroline Tarzian’s seven goals.
4. Christ the King (Middle Village, N.Y.) basketball – With the possible exception of Mount Vernon boys basketball, no team in any “revenue” sport has pumped out more big-time players over the years than the Royals. In recent years, though, Christ the King had stopped winning championships at elite invitationals or contending for mythical national championships. In fact, they had slipped to third in the New York City pecking order behind Murry Bergtraum (New York, N.Y.) and St. Michael Academy (New York, N.Y.).
Well, the bleeding stopped in March in the course of CTK becoming the first school ever to sweep boys and girls Federation titles in the same tournament. Led by junior Bria Smith, arguably the most coveted backcourt recruit on the Eastern seaboard this summer, the Royals beat PSAL champion Bergtraum and NYSPHSAA titlist Sachem East (Farmingville, N.Y.) in the Federation tournament.
5. Saratoga Springs (Saratoga Springs, N.Y.) cross country – As evidenced by their second-place showing at Nike Cross Nationals, the Blue Streaks were good enough to be state champions almost anywhere last fall. Alas, the scenic Mecca of summer thoroughbred racing is part of New York, which destined another typically outstanding Saratoga team to finish behind Fayetteville-Manlius in the NYSPHSAA Class AA race.
They followed up with their 17th Federation championship since 1989 and then placed five girls in the top 45 to finish second to F-M by a 74-147 margin. The best part is that rising sophomore Keelin Hollowood leads a list of five returnees among the top seven ‘Toga competitors.
Five near-misses for the list: Averill Park (Averill Park, N.Y.) basketball, Bay Shore (Bay Shore, N.Y.) softball, Queensbury (Queensbury, N.Y.) cross country, Murry Bergtraum (New York, N.Y.) basketball, St. Anthony's (Melville, N.Y.) lacrosse.
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.
