Boys junior varsity basketball

The boys junior varsity basketball team played two games this past week against Rome Catholic and Oppenheim-Ephratah.

Wednesday, Jan. 3, the team played at Rome Catholic and lost in a close, low-scoring contest, 25-22. They went into the contest without their high scorer, Dane Daiker, who was moved up to help out the varsity team that was playing even more short handed.  They felt that they would have won that contest with Daiker and should have won without him.  

Will Johnson led the scoring with 10 points followed by Andy Slegaitis with six, Cameron Lenci had five and Victor Pedraza with one.  

Shorthanded again, the team took the court on Saturday, Jan. 7, and lost to a team they had defeated earlier in the year by the score of 36-29. Again, the team was without Daiker and also Lenci was missing. This cost them dearly as they were missing their inside and outside presence.  

Old Forge got off to a fine start and held a 10-5 lead after one period of play. It was about as good as this team could play. However, as good as they were in the first period, the second period turned out to be a bad one. Oppenheim outscored Old Forge 18-3 in that period to give them a 10 point lead at the half. A lead they never relinquished. Johnson had his biggest game of the year as he led all scorers with 17 points. Johnson is starting to show signs of his potential as he is starting to play a bit more aggressively. He needs more of that and he will see a great difference in his production. Slegaitis played his heart out, as always, contributed eight points and great hustle on defense. Tyler McGough, a boy with promise, contributed four points and pulled down a number of rebounds with his jumping ability. McGough, who has never played organized basketball before, will become a good player if he works hard at the game to make up for his lack of learning the skills of basketball in his earlier years.   

Boys varsity basketball

On Friday, Dec. 30, the boys varsity basketball team pulled out a hard fought contest against Indian Lake-Long Lake in the closing seconds of the game, 33-30.  

Down by the score of 30-29 with 15 seconds left to play, Ethan Kress drove to the basket, scored and was fouled. At this point, it was a wild last 14 seconds of play. Kress missed the foul shot but we got the rebound and promptly turned it over. Indian Lake turned it right back over to us. Old Forge got the ball into play and foolishly attempted a shot which was blocked. To continue a wild and ugly ending, Indian Lake gave the ball right back to Old Forge and fouled Kress. Kress made both foul shots and Indian Lake did not have a chance to get off a three-point shot before the buzzer, ending the game, went off.  

The ending may have been a fitting closing to a very ugly played contest between these two small schools. The number of turnovers in the contest could have exceeded the score.  Someone once said that they would rather “win ugly” than lose in a well played game. I’m not sure I agree with that, but it was a win and we move on.  

Kress led the scoring with 12 points followed by Risley with 10, Greg Hunkins had eight, Kenny Pastore had two and Slegaitis had one point.  

Wednesday, Jan. 4, they played at Rome Catholic and had no chance against them as they entered the game missing three top players. Sam Waterbury, who they hope will rejoin the team soon, was still missing along with Kress and Risley. We were never in the contest as Rome Catholic rolled to a 62-23 victory. Hunkins had 11 points to lead the Eskimos followed by Pastore with six points and Dane Daiker, Parker Clemans and Cody Earl each had two points.  

Saturday, Jan. 7, they hosted Oppenheim, a team they defeated earlier in the year, without Waterbury and Risley. It was too much for the local team to overcome as Oppenheim took advantage of the outmanned Webb team and controlled the game from start to finish in recording a 53-34 victory.

The only bright spot to this game from Old Forge’s view was the fine play they received from Hunkins. Down the whole game, some players do not give their best, which is something that should never happen to a good athlete. Hunkins continued to play hard and it paid off for him. He scored a career high 21 points, had four steals and led in rebounding with seven boards. Other scoring came from Kress with six, Clemans had four points and Pastore had three.

Had the team had all of its members suited up and ready to play and giving their all, they probably could have won both of the games played this past week.  

Cross country skiing

The cross country ski team finally got their season under way as they had enough snow to run a meet at Osceola last Monday, Jan. 2. The competition was a skate sprint race and Old Forge dominated in both the boys and girls race. All of the Section III teams were present and it certainly looks good for Old Forge to have a fine season.  

The girls team was led by their youngest member, Megan Greene, an eighth grader, who captured first place. Behind Greene, came Jessica Hannah in fourth place, Allyson Brosemer, a ninth grader, placed fifth and Andrea Frey placed seventh to put four Town of Webb skiers in the top seven places. The top three finishers for a school represent the scoring team and Old Forge ended with 10 points, far better than second place finisher, Holland Patent with 21 points. Whitesboro, Camden and Adirondack were far back.  

The team’s top skier, Maddie Phaneuf, was at another meet that day.  

The boys team did just as well as the girls as they easily defeated Holland Patent by 10 points. Adam Luban, the boy from Syracuse who has been cleared to ski for Old Forge, was the winning skier, just ahead of Colin Criss in second place. Henry Uzdavinis, only an eighth grader, was sixth and the three boys total added up to nine points. To round out the team, Tecwyn Williams placed eighth to show just how dominant Old Forge was that day to have four finishers in the top eight positions. Holland Patent finished with 19 points with Whitesboro, Camden and Adirondack far back.  

With the lack of snow this past week, the team was not able to compete in any meet.  They tried, but, no facility had enough snow to ski on.     

Indoor track

The three senior boys that participate in the indoor track season had another busy week and with some outstanding results.  

Tuesday, Jan. 3, the team took part in the MVITA Partner Relays #1 race at Colgate University in the Sanford Field House.  In this series of two meets, each boy can participate in three events and you partner with another member of your team to give you your score for each event. With only three boys, they obviously cannot take part in very many events, but, that did not mean they did not do well.  

For the first time this season, two boys ran the 300 meter run and Trevor Godemann and Kevin Kress combined to win the event.  Godemann had the fastest time of the evening and Kress had the fourth fastest time of the evening to combine for first place.  Godemann’s winning time of 38.21 was unexpected as he was placed in lane one for his heat. Lane one is the worst lane to run, especially on a small 200 meter track as the curves are more severe and it slows a runner down.  

Godemann teamed up with Connor Rockhill in the long jump and together, they placed first. Rockhill jumped l8’ 5 1/2” and Godemann jumped l8’4 1/2”. That placed them in third and fourth individually and first as a team. Godemann, to fill his third event, triple jumped 38’ 6”, his poorest jump so far this year, but it came right after he ran the 300. That jump, by himself, placed fifth as only four schools had two jumpers.  

Rockhill and Kress combined to take first place in the high jump even though they both had off nights. Rockhill jumped 5’ 10” and Kress jumped 5’ 8” after he ran a 300 race.  

The highlight of the evening for our team was in the pole vault as Rockhill and Kress combined to take first place in that event by a total of more than two feet over the second place team. In winning the event, Rockhill cleared 13’ 3” to better his own school record. Kress also showed improvement as he cleared 10’ 9”.

The team score for Old Forge was 42 points, an amazing total from only three boys competing against much larger schools.  

Friday, Jan. 6, they went back to Colgate to take part in the relay #2 race and had another good outing.  

In this race, the boys tried some different events just to see how they would do in them against these larger schools. Old Forge is the only Class D school participating in these meets which include such large area schools as RFA. Rockhill and Kress took part in the 55 meter high hurdles and surprised some runners as Kress took first place and Rockhill placed fourth to combine to capture first place for the team competition. The same two boys showed improvement in the high jump from earlier in the week as Kress placed first with a 6’ 2” jump and Rockhill placed in a tie for second at 6’. In an off night for Rockhill in the pole vault, Kress and Rockhill still cleared high enough to capture another first place. Kress showed steady improvement by clearing 11’ 4” and Rockhill cleared 12’  Overall, Rockhill came in second and Kress was third.  

Godemann had to do his three events alone with little chance of scoring points for his team. He did well with it as placed first in the 200 meter dash in 24.41—a good time on the tight 200 meter track. Godemann placed second overall in the long jump with a distance of 19’ 2 1/2” and third in the triple jump with a jump of 40’ 7”. Godemann’s last jump was his best, but, he fouled by an inch and it did not count.

As a team, they scored 31 points and finished seventh out of the 13 schools taking part in the meet.

Girls volleyball

The girls varsity volleyball team played a non-league game against a fine Sauquoit team this past Wednesday, Jan. 4 at the Town of Webb School Gymnasium. After splitting the first two games, Sauquoit pulled ahead with a pair of 25-16 victories to win the match in four games.  

Old Forge was led by Jessica Menges with seven aces, eight kills and seven digs; Daria Orekhov had one ace, 15 assists and three kills; Alex Levi had five kills and five digs and Hallie Christodaro had one ace, one kill, one assist and one dig.  

Sauquoit also won the junior varsity competition in two games.

Friday, Jan. 6, the teams hosted Westmoreland. Old Forge’s varsity won the first set quite easily and it looked like it would be all over in three sets. However, Westmoreland came back to play a little better and then Old Forge started to make a number of unforced errors. Westmoreland won the next two games as easily as Old Forge won the first game. Fortunately for the local team, they were able to shake off their mistakes and come back to win the next two games to win the match. The scores of the games were:  25-18, 18-25, 19-25, 25-19 and 25-16.

It was a nice win for coach, Jessica Brownsell’s team, mainly for not giving up when things were not going well. Watching these young men and women participate in athletics is a great way of seeing how they react to adversity. In this case, the team did very well.  

I was very impressed by the steady play of Orekhov who seems to hold this team together. Like the point guard in basketball, Orekhov does much of the setting up for her teammates and rarely makes a mistake. She also serves the ball very accurately.  The team was led by Menges who had six aces, one block, 10 kills and nine digs; Orekhov had two aces, one kill, 20 assists and two digs; Alex Levi had two aces, six kills, one assist and seven digs and Christodaro had one ace and three kills.

The varsity now stands at 2-2 in the league and 3-6 overall.  

Westmoreland won the junior varsity game in two sets, 25-16 and 25-18. The main thing about the junior varsity team was their inconsistent play. All of the girls on the team made good plays and all of them made some bad plays, many of them unforced.  They show that they are capable of some fine play, but, they must be more consistent in their play to gain victory.