Girls CSC Track Championships

The girls varsity track team had a good showing in the CSC Division III Track Championships last Thursday, May 17, at Remsen. Remsen, a powerhouse in girls track and field, won the meet with Old Forge coming in second among the seven schools taking part in the meet. Besides, Remsen and the Town of Webb team, teams from Oriskany, Hamilton, ODY, Poland  and New York Mills took part in both the boys and girls meet.  

Caitlin Bailey led the way for the girls as she took first place in both the high hurdles and the intermediate hurdles in 17.0 and 74.2 respectively. Jessica Hannah was second in the high hurdles in 17.9. Maddie Phaneuf had a good day as she placed second in the 1500 meter run with time of 5:05.5 which is one-second off of her own record set last season. Phaneuf placed third in the 800 with a time of 2:34.2. Other places in the running events were turned in by Megan Greene as she placed fourth in the 3000, Sarah Branch was fifth in the 200 and Danielle Gibbs was fifth in the 400.  

In the field events, Lauren Holt placed fourth in the long jump with a 13’3” jump, second in the triple jump with a 30’ 1/2” leap and second in the high jump at 4’8”  Elizabeth Getty placed sixth in the long jump, Hannah placed third in the high jump, Holly Kalil placed sixth in the high jump, Melissa Rockhill placed fourth in the discus with Molly Rodriguez right behind her in fifth place.  

With some points added from the relays, Old Forge showed a good mix of running and field events points to match the highest finish they have had in league competition.  With a strong winning record in the dual meets held throughout the season, they have quietly turned in a very solid track season. Their next and last team competition will be at the Section III meet that is also held at Remsen this Wednesday, May 23, starting at 4 p.m.

Boys win CSC track championship

The Town of Webb School boys varsity track team won the CSC Division III Track Championship Meet held at Remsen this past Thursday, May 17. This was the fifth straight CSC title that coach, Tim Leach, and his team, have earned.  

To win the title this year was not easy as New York Mills had a very strong team competing against us. All year long, they have defeated us soundly in the running events but end up losing the meet because of their lack of field events strength. In this meet, we were much closer in scoring with their running but, they scored more points than usual in the field events. Coach, Mike Keating, the Mills second year head coach, has a wealth of talent in the running events with good team speed and good distance runners. With their depth, they control all of the relay teams also. Keating is the son of John Keating, a graduate of the Town of Webb schools who ran track at Old Forge and in college.  

In the team scoring, Old Forge topped the scoring with 214 points to the Mill’s 161.  Following the Mills in order were Remsen, Oriskany, Hamilton and Poland tied for fifth and ODY was seventh.  

The team was led by the three seniors that have been so successful as a unit their entire years on the team. Trevor Godemann, Connor Rockhill and Kevin Kress combined to score a total of 110 points for the team in this meet. They will close out their fine track careers having never tasted a loss in league competition. They had some great support from the rest of the team as every member of the team that competed in this meet, scored points. Ethan Kress scored a total of 32 points and Lance Frymire totaled 19 points to help secure the victory.  

In the running events, Frymire placed second and Luke Monroe sixth in the 100.  Frymire’s time of 11.9 was 1/10 of a second off the winning time. Kevin Kress and Frymire took second and third in the 200 in 23.7 and 24.6, both good times.  Godemann had a great day as he won the 400 in 52.0 and the 800 in 2:08.3. Trevor Rice placed fifth in the 800 and fourth in the 1600. Henry Uzdavinis had his best time in the 3200 with a 12:07 to place fifth. Tayler Schmid placed sixth in the 1600 as his times were well off his usual fine times. In the two hurdle events, we simply dominated them as Kevin Kress placed first, Rockhill was second and Kenny Pastore was fifth in the high hurdles and Rockhill won the intermediate hurdles with Hunter Lawrence placing third and Adam Levi fourth. The winning time in the high hurdles was 16.3 and in the intermediate hurdles it was 59.4.

In the field events, Godemann won the long jump at 18’ 10 1/2”, Ethan Kress was third and Carlos Villarreal was fifth, Ethan Kress won the triple jump  at 41’ 3” with Godemann 3 1/2” behind in second. Villarreal was fourth in the triple. Ethan Kress was second in the shot put and Pastore was fifth, Kress came back to win the discus with Kody Earl placing fourth. Rockhill won the high jump at 5’8” with Kevin kress placing second.  They had already clinched those positions and they decided to stop and finish the other events.  Pastore showed his versatility by placing sixth in the high jump.  Rockhill had another outstanding day in the pole vault as he cleared 13’ 6” for first.  Kevin Kress placed second and Frymire was fourth.  

The team picked up some points in the three relays and that meant that they scored points in all 17 events held. That fact alone was the main difference between Old Forge and New York Mills.  

Now, it is on to the important Section III finals held at Remsen May 23 at 4 p.m. It will be a very competitive meet with New York Mills and Living Word Academy providing the major competition, but, there are some strong individuals that will be running for the other schools at the meet.

Boys track team breaks record

Some members of the boys’ track team took part in the 13th annual Cicero-North Syracuse Invitational this past Saturday, May 19, with the hopes of getting some good individual results from our athletes against some of the largest schools in the section.   In all there were 18 schools who took part that scored points and most of them were AA schools.  

Our athletes simply chose what they wanted to do and concentrated on just one or two events. In the running events, Kevin Kress ran a 15.61 110 meter high hurdle race to place third overall. His time, when converted, appears to have tied the school record in that event with Hans Schmidt who has held the record since 1986. If that was not enough, Trevor Godemann ran a 51.61 400 meter race to place fourth and he did break the school record jointly held by Lief Frymire and Paul Metzler. These marks by our boys are certainly very good times.  

Two boys took part in the field events and they also did very well. Connor Rockhill vaulted 13’ to place second and Ethan Kress placed in both the long and triple jumps.  Kress long jumped 20’ 2” to place fourth and triple jumped 42’ 11 3/4” to place second.  

As a team, Old Forge placed ninth with 30 points. C-NS, the largest school in section III, won the meet and all of the other schools ahead of Old Forge were AA and A schools. Certainly, if they were there to take part in more events, they would have scored more points.  

As the team gets ready to compete in the Section III, Class D Meet, they can look back to a fine week of participation. They won the CUPPS and CSC Division III titles and broke or tied three school records. Lets hope they can carry this through to another Section III title.  

Varsity baseball

The varsity baseball team played their last three games of the season this past week, a home game against Rome Catholic and a doubleheader at Dolgeville.

The team played their last league game of the season this past Monday, May 14, against Rome Catholic. Old Forge was trying to pick up their first league win of the year and it looked good for most of the game. Old Forge never trailed in the game but Rome kept coming back to gain ties in the fourth inning and in the sixth.  

Garrett Pavlus, who pitched a good game throughout, kept Rome from scoring in the seventh and last inning. Pavlus struck out eight Rome batters, issued three walks and gave up only four hits. Pavlus was further helped by his team as they handled all fielding chances flawlessly. However, that does not mean anything if you cannot get the victory. The team knows about that as they had lost several contests in the last inning of play. Rome got the first two hitters out and it looked like it certainly will go into extra innings. However, the most dramatic event then happened when Parker Clemans came to bat. Now, Clemans has been a fine hitter all year, but he was not known for hitting the long ball. So, what does Clemans do? Naturally, he hit a two-out game winning home run to give his team a very dramatic 4-3 victory.  

The game was an exciting game throughout and if it did nothing else but give them one victory, it also gave the team something to look back on with some pride. The fact that Clemans received more congratulations on his game winning home run than his acceptance into Harvard may have been an indicator of what some people feel was his big achievement. But—in baseball anyway—it was a heck of a way to go out.  

The team had to travel to Dolgeville and play a doubleheader to finish their season on Friday, May 18. The two games were non-league games and Old Forge had to play with three players absent from the games. No facts were given me by press time and all I know about the games is that Dolgeville won both games rather easily.  

Old Forge ended the season with a 1-9 league record and a 2-12 record overall. With a fine group of returning players they, nevertheless, will miss the five seniors who played their last game for the Town of Webb School. Parker, Clemans, Daniel Heroux, Pavlus, PJ Perkins and Bert Yuhasz finished their play at Old Forge last Friday, May 18.  

CUPPS track championship

Both the boys’ and girls’ varsity track teams took part in the CUPPS Track Championships this past Monday, May 14. This championship is an extension of a league that Old Forge took part in years ago and the schools have kept up the tradition of that old league by having an annual meet. It means little, but to get together for a meet with some fine competition is beneficial to the teams in getting ready for their own league meets and the upcoming Section III meet. CUPPS stands for Conference of Upstate Private and Public schools. When Old Forge took part in the league, other members were Faith Heritage, MPH, DeRuyter, NYSSD, Cincinnatus and Remsen.  

The director of the meet has not sent the final results to our school and to name the places would be calling upon my memory of each event and their places. However, in the team results, Old Forge placed third in the girls competition and first in the boys competition.  

One important event took place in the boys triple jump and that was the fine jump that Ethan Kress had to win that event. Kress jumped 43’ 11 1/2” to break his own school record by 10”. This ranks as one of the top three jumps in Section III at all levels.  

Hopefully, I will have the results in by next week’s edition of the Express.

Girls varsity softball

The girls’ varsity softball team played one league contest and a doubleheader at Waterville this past week to end their season of play.  

Monday, May 14, the team played their last league game of the season at home against Rome Catholic. The game ended in another tough loss for the Eskimos as they lost the game in the last inning, 5-3.  

Old Forge had a 2-0 lead going into the fifth inning when Rome struck back with a three run rally to take the lead. Old Forge tied the game in the bottom of the sixth only to have Rome win the game in the next inning. Leading the way offensively were Mercedes Rice with three singles, Sam Notley had two singles and two RBI’s, Katie Connell had the only extra base hit with a double, Mackenzie Kelly had a single and Haley Josephson had a single and one RBI.

They had to journey to Waterville to play a doubleheader on Thursday, May 17. In a doubleheader, the two teams play two five-inning games with Waterville being the home team in the first game and Old Forge being the home team in the second game.  

The game was all Waterville in the first game as they scored 14 runs and pounded out 14 hits in a 14-1 rout of Old Forge. This was all done in just four innings of play as they did not need to hit in the fifth as victory was clinched. Waterville’s Micaela Loconte pitched a one-hitter and led the hitting with a double and a triple. Loconte also got the victory in the second game. Kelly got the lone hit in the third inning and scored Old Forge’s only run.  

In the second game, coach, Mark Johnston decided to use a different pitcher, which did not turn out very well. Waterville opened the game with 10 runs scored in the first inning. Johnson changed pitchers in the second and went to Josephson who has only limited experience on the mound. Josephson pitched very well and held Waterville to just one unearned run in the  four innings she pitched. Waterville could not get a hit off of her pitching and she had numerous strike outs to end her athletic career at the Town of Webb School.  

The team responded to Josephson’s pitching by scoring more runs than in the first game and finally went down by the close score of 11-8. Jessica Menges, not having to worry about her usual pitching chores, had her best hitting outing of the year as she led the offense with a double and two singles and two RBI’s. Kelly had two singles, Connell had two singles and two RBI’s, Josephson had a single and two RBI’s, Shelby Egnaczyk had a single and one RBI and Allyson Brosemer, Mallory Kleps, Andrea Frey and Rice each had one single.  

Two of the losses this past week could easily have been victories for this tough luck team that had five losses that could have been wins. They almost defeated New York Mills, the league champion, in a game at the Mills in a 4-3 loss earlier in the season.  The only victory they got for the season was their season opener at Poland.  

The  team has many key members back to play next year but they will have to find a pitcher or they will continue to have trouble winning games. What I did like about this team was the fact that even though they kept on losing, they never gave up and continued to try to win.  hat is all one can ask from a team—to try.

Varsity golf

Heading into this last week of play, the Old Forge varsity golf team had a one-game lead on Remsen with only one match left to play. That match was an important one as they had to play at Alder Creek and the opponent was Remsen. A win meant the league championship, a loss would mean a tie for the championship with the Rams. The league changed its rules on how to handle a tie this year and it simply was to make it be co-champions and not how they did head-to-head.  

Remsen used its home course advantage to the fullest as they easily won the match 173-186. With that win, Remsen tied Old Forge for first place in the North Division of the Center State Conference and the two teams were declared co-champions. Both teams ended the league season with 8-2 records. That one-shot loss to Remsen earlier in the season at Thendara certainly came back to haunt the Eskimos as a victory there, would have clinched the title.

Colin Criss led Old Forge, as he has done all year, with a fine 39 over Alder Creek’s par 36 course. Lexie Haehl was second on the team with a 46 followed by Bryan Townsend with a 49 and Evan Nahor who shot a 52. Remsen was led by two boys who each shot a 39 and that was the main difference between these two teams.  

Going into the season, no one expected Old Forge to be in the hunt for the title, but, they played consistently well and with the help of two one-shot victories over Adirondack, found themselves right in front of the North Division all year.  If you can’t win the title, being co-champions is not bad.  

Yesterday, May 21, the team took part in the Class D Tournament at Twin Ponds.  The result of that tournament will be in next week’s edition of the Express.