Raiders Boys Tennis Team Dominates League and Sends Six Teams to Conference
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For the second consecutive year, the Scarsdale Varsity A team has won the league. In fact, Scarsdale has not lost a league match in the past two years. Commenting on the success of the season, Scarsdale coach Jennifer Roane states, “We were undefeated in the league and the only match we lost was to a very strong team in Cold Spring Harbor. As a test to our talent, we were invited to go to California next year.” In March of 2012, Scarsdale will be traveling to California to compete in a tournament to which only sixteen high schools in the country were invited. It comes as no surprise that Scarsdale had a record six doubles teams in the Conference II tournament.
The All-State doubles duo of Ben Fife and Austin Kaplan came into the Conference tournament as the number one seeded team. Fife and Kaplan finished second in the state tournament last year and have continued by capturing the doubles league title last week. Due to the rain, Fife and Kaplan could not begin their Conference title quest until Friday, May 20th when the matches had to be moved to Sound Shore Indoor Tennis in Portchester. The doubles state finalists cruised through to the conference finals where they met a very strong Pelham team. Scarsdale persevered to win the conference finals in straight sets 6-4, 6-4. Fife believes they have yet to reach their potential this year and will continue to improve. “We are waiting to really show our talents but I am definitely content with our play to this point,” says Fife. Kaplan agrees that their postseason play will continue to improve and he has the state tournament in mind. “First we are going to focus on the sectional tournament, but of course we have our sights on returning to states,” says Kaplan. Certainly, the sectional tournament will be exciting for this talented duo.
The other Scarsdale doubles teams who qualified for the conference tournament were Jared Greenwald and Ian Rabin, Ben Shapiro and Johnny Baker, Andrew Gorobetz and Ben Bernstein, David Josselson and Danny Somekh, and Tom Kohn and David Goldberg. Goldberg, Scarsdale’s co-captain, was defeated in the quarterfinals despite advancing to the state tournament the past two years. Greenwald and Rabin played an excellent first match, winning 6-0, 6-4. Unfortunately, the tandem of Greenwald and Rabin were defeated in their second match by a very strong New Rochelle team. Gorobetz and Bernstein won a tight and exciting first match 7-5 3-6 10-5 against a strong Solomon Schechter team. After a hard fought second match, Gorobetz and Bernstein were defeated in a super tie-breaker 6-4 3-6 10-6. Shapiro and Baker were forced to play fellow teammates Somekh and Josselson in the second round. After a tight first set, Baker and Shapiro were able to improve their serve and volley strategy in order to win the match 7-6 (4) 6-1. Shapiro and Baker fell to the finalists in the semi-finals and earned a spot in the sectional tournament. The section one tennis tournament will begin Wednesday May 25th at Veterans Park at 3 pm.
Scarsdale Girl’s Varsity Lacrosse Team Ends the Season With Two Heartbreakers
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The Mamaroneck’s Tigers stunned the Scarsdale Varsity girls lacrosse team with a winning goal in the final seconds of the game, and took the game 16-15 on May 10. Mamaroneck Tigers’ star, Abby Baigelman, scored her fourth goal of the game with just 3 ticks on the clock to eliminate Scarsdale’s hope for a tie.
The first meeting between the two teams just two weeks before in Scarsdale was also an evenly matched thriller, and was a much lower scoring affair that ended in an 8-8 tie. In that first meeting, senior co-captain, Allie Grant led the Raiders with 4 goals and 1 assist; Lindsey Repp had 3 goals and Liz Felix had 1 goal. Mamaroneck was led by Lauren Rush and Abby Baigelman who both scored 2 goals.
Tuesday, May 10th’s second meeting was back and forth early on until it was 4-4 with 10 minutes left in the first half. Allie Grant (midfield), Carly Levine (attack) and Liz Felix (midfield) scored early for the Raiders. The Tigers then solved the Raider defense with quick passes in front of the goal to open up an 11 – 7 half time lead. The Raiders’ half time huddle produced an effective defensive game plan to slow down the Tigers’ pin point passing. Chelsea Dodge, Cali Kurlan, Lauren Alin, Dannah Strauss, Ali Lonner, Caroline Knapp and Lauren Farfel anchored the defense that stymied the Tigers’ scoring for most of the second half. In addition, Ali Chaves was stellar in goal making numerous saves to keep the game close. She has replaced injured senior co-captain, Kim Grinhaus.
On offense, Allie Grant led the second half charge, scoring 5 of the next 7 Raider goals to tie the score at 14 all with 4 minutes left in the game. Other attack players making contributions included Melanie Dodge, Abigail Stone, Julia Morris and Christina Holden. Liz Felix scored a goal to give the Scarsdale its first lead, 15-14, since early in the game with just two minutes left. Just ten seconds later, Mamaroneck answered with a goal of their own to tie the score at 15 – 15.
Lindsey Repp was successful at directing the draw most of the game and did so again with just under 2 minutes to go. While waiting for the last shot, a Raider turnover with 1 minute left gave the Tigers the opening they needed and Lauren Rush made the perfect pass to Baigelman in front of the net with 3 seconds left to clinch the victory. Rush also finished with 4 goals.
For Scarsdale, Grant finished the game with 8 goals bringing the Raiders back from 4 and 5 goal deficits in the second half while Felix had 3 goals including a clutch go ahead goal at the end; Repp and Levine had two goals each.
At the end of Tuesday's game, Scarsdale was 5-9-1 and due to face Greenwich on Thursday May 16th.
In Greenwich the team played another thrilling game but lost to Greenwich High School 9-8 on a goal late in the game played under rainy conditions.
The Raiders came back from 3-0 and 5-1 deficits to tie the score at 5-5 at the end of the half. Allie Grant sparked the rally, scoring two goals and assisting on another in the first half. The Raider’s Liz Felix quick sticked a pin point pass from Grant with 17 seconds on the clock to knot the score at 5-5 to end the first half. Abigail Stone and Carly Levine also scored goals in the comeback.
Greenwich made it 7-5 on two quick goals to start the second half. The Raider defense then stiffened, led by the goal tending of Ali Chaves, to keep Scarsdale in the game. Behind by 8-6, Scarsdale tied the game 8-8 with goals by Felix and a bob and weave by Grant. Scarsdale had chances to go ahead at 8-8 and to tie it at the end of the game but the Greenwich keeper made clutch saves and the goal by the Cardinals with 2 minutes to go proved to be the game winner.
Grant finished with 4 goals and 1 assist; Felix had 2 goals and Stone and Levine had 1 goal each.
This was the final game of the regular season, resulting in a 5-10-1 record for Scarsdale, and ending the season with 3 heartbreaking one-goal losses.
Playoffs will begin on Thursday, May 19th – however neither their opponent nor the site have been announced.
Edgemont Bowlers Place First in State Competition
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Three Edgemont boys took first place at the NYS Bowling Congress in Syracuse on April 30. The three teammates, James Butler, Jeff Lee and Abhishek Saraiya are all seniors at Edgemont High School where they compete on the Varsity Bowling Team. The fourth member of the team is Matthew Brusco, a junior from Stamford, CT.
Over 800 bowlers from all over New York State competed with 20 teams vying in the Class A competition. The team of Butler, Lee, Saraiya and Brusco placed first in the 2011 Class A, New York State United States Bowling Congress (USBC) Team Championship Tournament Finals. In addition, Abhishek Saraiya placed first in the Individual High Series Handicap. The boys were awared gold medals and a four year annual scholarship of $1,000 per year to be shared among the teammates.
Congrats to these star bowlers!
Pictured from left to right: Matthew Brusco, Jeff Lee, James Butler and Abhishek Saraiva. Photo courtesy of Dori Lee
Sign Up Now for the Compton Tennis Tournament
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A Star-Studded Varsity Tennis Team
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Scarsdale has a tradition for strong tennis teams, most years sending students to the sectionals and onto the states. In fact, last year, the Boys Varsity A team ended the season 13-1, dropping only one match to Horace Greeley. This year talent runs deep, with nationally ranked players on the team making the matches look more like games you see at the U.S. Open than on the Scarsdale High School courts. Though the season got off to a cold and rainy beginning, Scarsdale started strong, and before the spring break they were 4-0, winning matches against Mamaroneck, Cross River, Bronxville and Pelham. Hopes were high at the first match following the vacation against powerhouse Cold Spring Harbor on April 26th. This was a non-league match set up by the coaches to bring two top-ranked teams together. Parents, friends and coaches came out to watch some first-rate tennis as the teams faced off.
Playing first singles was junior Austin Kaplan. A tournament player Kaplan trains many days a week and travels to
matches on the weekends as well. He is ranked 92 in the country. He faced Josh Levine, an opponent he knew from the circuit and played a challenging match splitting the first two sets 3-6, and 6-2, but losing the third set 6-0. Playing second singles was Ben Fife, the third Fife in a family of three boys, all gifted players. He also travels to tournaments on the weekends, and is nationally ranked. He fell to Eric Ambrosio, splitting the first two sets and losing in the third. The youngest player on the team is sophomore Jonny Baker, also a contender on the circuit. He is ranked 32 in New York and 626 in the country. Up to the Cold Spring Harbor match he had not dropped a game this season and on Tuesday he defeated Connor Dauer in two sets, 6-4, 6-4.
Playing first doubles for the team are the duo of co-captain David Goldberg and Thomas Kohn. Goldberg is a four year varsity player, who went to the states for the past two years, and Kohn spent last year at the Evert Tennis Academy in Boca Raton, Florida. Both are seniors at SHS and they played an athletic and well choreographed match, diving behind each other, and switching sides of the court with amazing speed. However, they also were defeated by Cold Spring
Harbor, losing 6-2, 6-4. The second doubles team of junior Danny Somekh and co-captain and senior David Josselsohn were bested by their opponents in a three set match, but things went better for the third and fourth doubles teams. Juniors Jared Greenwald and Ian Rabin defeated Cold Spring Harbor in two sets, 6-4, 7-5 and senior Ben Bernstein and his partner, junior Andrew Gorobetz were off the court quickly, winning 6-0, 6-1. Also playing for Scarsdale are juniors Will Heffner and Andreas Landgrebe who together form another doubles team and junior Ben Shapiro, a singles player and another tournament contender.
On Tuesday, Scarsdale came away with their first loss of the season, at 4 matches for Cold Spring Harbor vs. 3 for
Scarsdale. As of April 27, the team record is 5-1. On Thursday April 28th, the Raiders face Horace Greeley, which could be their toughest league match of the season.
The players’ enthusiasm for the sport, the team and Coach Jennifer Roane is evident and all the boys looked proud to be playing for Scarsdale. We wish them the best of luck as the season unfolds.
Pictured at top: Austin Kaplan and Thomas Kohn
Written with help from DJ Holloway and Bryan Solomon