Daily Sports Digest: Section 1 Announces Boys Basketball Awards

The Top Spot:

For the seventh year in a row Section One’s Mr. Basketball plays for Mount Vernon, as 6-foot-4 senior Isaiah Cousins was named earlier in the week.

Cousins is a tall player who can defend well, handle the ball and create match up nightmares for the opposing coaches. At 16-2, the defensive minded Knights are the top seed in Class AA and they will take on the winner of the Scarsdale Clarkstown North match up later in the week.

Cousins joins Jonathan Mitchell (2006), Michael Coburn (2007), Kevin Jones (2008), Sherrod Wright (2009) and Jabarie Hinds (2010-11) as Mount Vernon Knights to be named Mr. Basketball over the last seven years.

Mitchell played two years at Florida and won a national championship before transferring to Rutgers for his junior and senior seasons.

Michael Coburn went to Rutgers and is currently playing along side Patrick Ewing Jr. on the Jamaican National Team.

Sherrod Wright is currently second in scoring for George Mason.

Hinds and Jones have started all 26 games for West Virginia this season and Jones currently leads the Big East in both points and rebounds as a senior. Hinds was just the third person ever to win the award as a high school junior, behind NBA players Elton Brand and Ben Gordon, needless to say Cousins has a lot to live up to.

Cousins is joined on the all Tri-County team by teammate Randy Stephens, Clarkstown South’s Mike McCahey, Albertus Magnus’ Tyler Sayer, Fox Lane’s Will Trawick and Sky Williams from Tuckahoe.

Tappan Zee’s Coach George Gaines was named the section’s Coach of the Year and Conference Coaches of the year went to Mahopac’s Kevin Downes (Conference 1), Mamaroneck’s Tyrone Carver (Conference 2), Fox Lane’s Chris Violante (Conference 3), and Matt Backs of Clarkstown South (Conference 4).

The high school with several outbracket games being played across the Hudson Valley.

College Sports Notebook:

Spartans stay on track

The St. Thomas Aquinas College men’s track and field team missed third place by the thin margin of a point at the Collegiate Track Conference championships hosted by Wesleyan University at the Freeman Athletic Center in Middleton, CN.

The Spartans finished fourth in a field of more than 20 teams, while the women’s team placed in a tie for 13th with Farmingdale State, both earning 22 points, well behind champion Georgian Court with 162.

Rowan University of Glassboro, NJ, won the men’s title with 134.5 points, followed by New Jersey Institute (105), Farmingdale State (85), and STAC (84).         

George Erazo of North Babylon earned first-team all-conference in the 400 with a time of 48.92, and winning the 200 in 22.88 

Freshman Alex Andre of Garnerville also took first-team all-conference honors in the 800 with a time of 1:59.15. 

Garvenchy Nicolas of Brooklyn took second-team all-conference honors in the 1,000 with a time of 2:39.59, while Mike Galonski of Newton, NJ, took third-team honors in the 5,000 with a time of 15:33.09. 

The 4x400 relay team of Erazo, Rich Ricca of Pearl River, Frankie Colon of Suffern and Andre earned second-team all-conference accolades with a time of 3:29.82. 

The 4x200 team of Ricca, Mike Abelard of Spring Valley, Rosnack Malivert of Nyack and Erazo earned third-team honors, while Dan Davren of Pearl River, a celebrated member of the soccer team, finished fifth in his first triple jump competition.

On the women’s side, sophomore Keeley Bateman of Pearl River earned third-team all-conference honors in the 1,000 with a time of 3:08.14, and took fourth in the 800 in a time of 2:26.12. Freshman Catherine Sandkuhl of North Babylon took fifth-place honors in the 400-meter dash in a time of 1:01.69. 

The 4x200 relay of Kaitlyn Mancini of Long Island, Catherine Sandkuhl of North Babylon, Gina Funaro of Queens, and Ashley Stokkeland of Warwick took sixth place in a time of 1:55.39.
STAC hopes to build upon this success on Saturday in the Deneault Invitational at Cornell University in Ithaca.

On the lanes             

Greg Black of the Westchester Community College men’s bowling team rolled a 215 and a 200 to finish ninth in singles at the Nassau Tournament at AMF Garden City Lanes.

Black, a graduate of Tuckahoe High, averaged 181 for the tournament.

On the women’s side, Britany Crow, out of Blessed Sacrament HS, averaged 151 and finished 12th in the all-events competition.

On the ice

Junior Tom Natoli of Suffern is a reserve goalie on the Becker College hockey team that visits Salve Regina University in Newport, RI, tonight.

Becker, of Leicester, MA, is 8-13-1 on the season while Salve Regina is 6-16.

Anthony Birbilis of Katonah, a junior forward, has two assists in 11 games for Salve Regina, which will be home again on Saturday night to host Wentworth College (15-6-1) at 7 p.m.

Tough road for Mavericks

The Mercy College women’s basketball team, coming off a 22-point loss to East Coast Conference foe C.W. Post, looks to rebound at home in Dobbs Ferry tonight.

Tip-off is set for 5:30 p.m. as the front end of a doubleheader with the men’s team, whose game is scheduled at 7:30 p.m.

The Mavericks (2-20, 2-10 ECC), however, are hosting a powerful squad from the University of District of Columbia, which has won 18 of 22 contests.

C.W. Post was no slouch, either, lifting its record to 17-7 overall and 8-4 in the conference.

In the loss, Aysha Williams of New Rochelle had four rebounds, three assists and three points while Jessica Biggs of Nanuet, playing 12 minutes as a reserve, contributed two blocked shots and two points.

Weekly Sports Poll:

Earlier in the month the Baseball Hall of Fame started a drug education program for students and young adults. “Be A Superior Example” or “BASE” will work with the Taylor Hooton Foundation and the Professional Baseball Athletic Trainers Society in an effort to promote a healthy lifestyle for young athletes that is completely free of performance enhancing drugs.

"It is through the education programs that we are able to fulfill our mission of providing context to the issues that have faced our game, as a reflection of American history, throughout its history," Baseball Hall of Fame President Jeff Idelson said to the Associated Press.

In the upcoming months Idelson and the Hall of Fame are hoping to conduct a nationwide survey, hold a summit in Cooperstown and begin a national registry for people pledging to live a PED free lifestyle.

Since 1936 voting for the baseball hall of fame in Cooperstown, New York has been an integral part in the Major League Baseball season. This year controversial figures like Sammy Sosa, Barry Bonds, and Roger Clemens will be appearing on the ballot for the first time. Now the only question is should this trio of notorious superstars be allowed into baseball’s hallowed halls? Or should they be left out of Cooperstown like so many others?

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