With 10 players contributing to the score and more than half the points coming from three-pointers alone, the Ward Melville girls’ basketball team had no problem cruising to a 56-18 win over William Floyd Tuesday.
“We worked well together,” junior guard Hannah Lorenzen said. “We really stepped up our defense, and we have a lot of shooting guards that can make threes; we did that pretty well today.”
The Patriots started the game off by scoring eight straight points, with senior forward Heidi Scarth scoring half of them. The team was stealing passes and forcing William Floyd turnovers, but the Colonials bounced back to score five straight points.
Ward Melville re-extended its lead by the end of the first quarter, with senior guard Kira Sells and junior guard and forward Taylor Tripptree knocking down a three-pointer apiece to give their team a commanding 14-5 lead.
“It’s definitely one of our strongest points to our game,” Sells said of scoring three-pointers. “I know I could do better. So I’m just working on getting better every game.”
Sells did do one better, though.
After Shannon Berry banked three field goals to swing the tempo of the game, Sells swished two more treys to help her team further its lead to 30-10 by halftime.
Lorenzen said her teammates did a good job of passing outside if they couldn’t enter the paint.
“It does help a lot, because if we can’t penetrate through the paint, we can kick it and depend on our shooting guards to make the threes, which helps us get ahead,” she said.
But Ward Melville head coach Bruce Haller said a team that wants to go up against the best-of-the-best in Suffolk County, like Brentwood, Longwood, Sachem East and the county-best Commack, would need to play with a more balanced attack.
“It’s a double-edged sword,” he said. “The three is a great weapon, but if you fall too much in love with it and your three isn’t going in that particular game, now what? It’s all or nothing. That’s why we’re focusing on getting the ball inside a little more and getting some second shots. When those threes get missed, someone needs to be hitting the board from the weak side to get some putbacks.”
What did work for the team, though, was getting enough ahead that more bench players were able to see minutes.
“The kids work really hard in practice all the time and it’s nice to get them out on the court, get them some playing time and have them make some shots,” he said. “We have a very talented, deep group.”
Six of the 10 players that scored on that deep roster banked trifectas, and 31 of the team’s total points came from the five bench players that scored.
Bre Cohn and Maggie Zanone came off the bench in the fourth to score six points and three points, respectively, while stealing passes and dishing assists to close out the scoring for the game.
“We’re all close on and off the court,” Lorenzen said. “We have classes together, eat lunch together — so we’re all friends.”
Haller said his team has come a long way, making the decision to come together and step up to replace the injured freshman leading scorer from last year’s team: Lauren Hansen.
“They could have felt sorry for themselves,” he said. “Instead, a number of players are stepping up and taking over responsibilities or a bit of a different role that we didn’t anticipate them having in the preseason, and they’ve done a good job of it. Instead, they decided that they’re going to make a run for this thing.”
A familiar face is stepping onto the college lacrosse scene.
Tom Rotanz, a former head boys’ lacrosse coach for Shoreham-Wading River for 18 years, will helm St. Joseph’s College’s new men’s lacrosse program, which will begin its first season in spring 2017.
“It’s something I always wanted to do,” Rotanz said of joining the college ranks. “I think any competitive athlete and coach wants to show someone what good can come from having the right people around you and the good players that are willing to commit themselves, and I hope to have another successful tenure at St. Joseph’s.”
Rotanz has a long history with lacrosse.
His elder brother was on the team that won Ward Melville’s first Long Island championship in 1974, and the younger Rotanz was part of the squad that won the second and third in 1976 and 1977. The lacrosse captain earned All-American honors as a senior in 1977, after his team also made it to the New York State championship game, the first one for lacrosse. The boys lost that game, 12-11.
From there, he was the captain of the Suffolk County Community College lacrosse team that won a national championship and earned All-American honors twice. He then repeated that feat at Adelphi University, where he was also named an All-American twice.
“Tom was a great player,” said his former high school coach, and a legend on the lacrosse scene, Joe Cuozzo. “He was a great competitor, had a great sense of humor about him, and I really enjoyed working with him.”
As a coach himself, with the Shoreham-Wading River Wildcats’ program only a year old, Rotanz took over a roster of 14 players, including six freshmen. The team went 1-15 his first season, scoring 38 goals on the year. But seven years later, the team was ranked fourth in the country, after winning a New York State championship and scoring close to 400 goals.
“It snowballed into something that was really neat to be a part of,” he said. “In the last 13 years I was there, we won 10 county championships, five Long Island and three New York State. People always wondered why or how we kept winning every year and being ranked one or two in the county. I say if you have bright kids that buy into the system, I think anything is possible.”
Rotanz earned his first of six Suffolk County Coach of the Year honors in 1999, two years before he led the program to its first county championship in 2001. In 2002, the program repeated as Suffolk champs en route to Long Island and New York State titles. The team also swept Suffolk, Long Island and New York State championship titles in 2007 and 2012.
In 2012, the coach added to his list of accolades, serving as an assistant for the 2012 USA Men’s U-19 lacrosse team that won a world championship.
Now, he hopes to be able to bring that same success to St. Joseph’s, and Shantey Hill, assistant vice president and senior director of athletics and recreation for the college, thinks Rotanz is the perfect fit.
“We were very lucky in that Coach Rotanz applied,” she said, referring to the school’s intensive, national search across all NCAA institutions. “He has a plethora of experience, and … he knows the landscape of Long Island, and he’s very well-connected with his peers to be able to do good recruiting for what we’re looking for.”
For Rotanz, being on the scene as long as he has and being a part of Long Island lacrosse, serving as an assistant coach at Smithtown West for the last two years, will be beneficial throughout the recruiting process for the Golden Eagles.
“I’m very close friends with a lot of the Suffolk and Nassau coaches, so they’re already contacting me with players that they think will be a great fit, kids that they think would really like to play for me; so that’s the neat thing.”
He added, laughing, “I think there will be a lot more kids that think about not leaving the Island now, hopefully.”
According to Hill, the school decided the time was right for a lacrosse program after seeing that a number of Division III student-athletes in the college’s Skyline Conference that commit to play lacrosse come from Long Island and that there was interest with incoming and current students. The college also built a new outdoor athletic facility.
Hill said St. Joseph’s found the right coach in Rotanz.
“We think we hit a home run with coach Rotanz,” she said. “He’s not only a wonderful coach, but also a great man, and he will do great things. We’re looking forward to him not only being the face of the lacrosse program, but also being a mentor to our male student-athletes. His tenure speaks for itself. He’s very well-connected, and he has good relationships with lots of people, and that’s something you can’t put a price tag on.”
Cuozzo, who was inducted into the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame, said he used to go to Shoreham-Wading River practices and games to watch his former athlete, and has been thrilled with his approach to the game.
“The way he treats kids, he’s a real student of the game, and I can’t say enough on how proud I am of his accomplishments,” he said. “He brings a winning attitude.”
Rotanz, who said he tries to emulate the ways and successes of his former coach, is competitive, according to Cuozzo.
“He hates to lose — I think he got that from me,” he said, laughing. “I wasn’t a very good loser.”
Luckily, neither one of them has had to do much of that.
Cuozzo compiled a 699-73 record while at the helm of the Patriots’ program. In 2007, he became the head coach at Mount Sinai, where he brought his win total to 747 in his four years before retirement. During his tenure with the Wildcats, Rotanz amassed a 256-99 record.
Cuozzo also thinks Rotanz will be able to draw athletes to the school.
“A lot of kids like to leave Long Island when they are finished with high school — they don’t want to stay local — but knowing Tom, he’s very convincing,” Cuozzo said. “He’ll do his homework. He’ll go out and scout, he’ll go to high school games and he’ll talk, make phone calls. He’s very organized, he’s very knowledgeable about the game, and there’s no doubt in my mind that he’s going to be successful there.”
Everyone was giving 110 percent at practice, but since his adjustment from high school to college ball was challenging for him, former Comsewogue soccer standout James Thristino had to put in that much more effort.
The payoff proved to be worthwhile, as the Adelphi University freshman forward earned Eastern College Athletic Conference Rookie of the Year honors as a result.
“I had to come in fit — keep working as hard as I can because I was just a freshman going into a team that’s very good,” Thristino said. ”And in the beginning, it started off a little slow for me.”
Matt Giaconelli, a sophomore midfielder for the Panthers, said he was excited to see what his new teammate, who was Long Island’s leading goal-scorer and point-scorer as a junior and senior, would bring to the team.
“I thought he was going to be a big help right from the start,” he said. “Any goal-scorer is going to be useful on any team.”
Giaconelli said the freshman forward was a little discouraged at first, because he needed to adjust to the speed and physicality of the game at the next level, but he adapted in his first season. As a result, Thristino’s efforts also earned him an ECAC Second Team placement.
“He scored plenty of goals and he helped us out a lot,” Giaconelli said. “He had a great season and he deserved it. He worked hard.”
Head coach Carlo Acquista also noticed his player’s dedication to the game.
“He showed his talent and ability and why we recruited him,” he said. “He came in and needed to adjust a little bit, but he did a good job. He was right on course to do what he was supposed to do and what we expected him to do.”
Thristino said he worked with the juniors and seniors on the team, especially captain, midfielder and forward Alejandro Penzini, one of his roommates, to work on adjusting his game, despite being intimidated by the upperclassmen from the start.
Acquista said he worked with the team’s assistant coaches as well.
“He did a little bit of extra individual work and he really absorbed all the information that I brought to the table,” he said. “I think he did a good job of picking up the learning curve very quickly.”
Rooming not only with the captain, Thristino bunked with junior midfielder Caelan Hueber, who scored the most goals on the team — with 11 on the season — and had five assists. Thristino said he didn’t think he’d scored as many as the eight goals and two assists he did, which was good for second-highest on the roster.
“The college game is faster, more physical, hard-working and demanding — everyone expects more because they’re great players from all around,” he said. “You need to improve.”
And with each game, he did. Thristino wasn’t a starter, but he found a way to make his presence known.
In the team’s Sept. 26 game against Vermont’s St. Michael’s College, Thristino was subbed into the game about 20 minutes in, and with his first touch on the ball, beat out a defender and scored to put the Panthers’ first point on the board. After the Knights scored the equalizer, the former Warriors star tapped in a rebound to score the game-winner.
“Scoring the second goal to put us ahead was a good feeling,” Thristino said. “After, my teammates grabbed me, hugged me in the corner. That made me think, ‘All right, I like this feeling. I need to keep it going.’”
And he did that, too.
He scored all three goals in a 3-0 win over Stonehill College in Massachusetts on Oct. 10.
“It was all hard work,” he said of the different ways he scored to help his team to another victory. “To be successful at college soccer, you need to be hard-working. You need to give 110 percent every time you step onto the field” because the competition is better than it is on the high school level. “You don’t get that many chances on the ball sometimes, so if you get one, you have to capitalize because you might not get many more.”
Following both games, the forward earned separate Northeast-10 Rookie of the Week honors.
Some of the freshman’s most memorable moments from the season include scoring his first playoff goal against Le Moyne College in the quarterfinals and celebrating in front of a large crowd. Another was when his team was tied 1-1 against Merrimack College and, with five minutes left in the game, he stole the ball away from the goalkeeper and knocked in a shot from 30 yards out that ended up being another game-winner.
“I ran into the corner and one of my best friends was on the sidelines and he tackled me to the floor as we celebrated,” he said. “That’s probably the most memorable one because that brought us to the championship for the first time in school history.”
His coach thanked him for being in the wrong position on that play.
“He made me look like a genius,” Acquista said. “I’m always excited for my guys to do well, and he took his role every game and he learned from it.”
As a result of his hard work and garnering his accolades this season, Thristino is looking forward to the next chapter of his college career.
“Getting that [Rookie of the Year] award boosted my confidence to the next level,” he said. “Knowing I could do even better next season, I’m going to keep raising my standards even higher, like I did in high school. It worked for me and I always want to do something better than what I previously did because I like to prove people wrong.”
The head coach said his athlete listened to what he needed him to do and did it, and it led to a successful season. He’s hoping for more from his forward in the future.
“For James to get Rookie of the Year is impressive because [in] the Northeast-10 Division II you get a lot of older international players as well,” he said. “So for a true rookie, 18 years old, to get Rookie of the Year in the conference is pretty unheard of … so that’s credit to him. … I just want James to keep growing and keep getting better.”
The Shoreham-Wading River girls’ basketball team struggled to recover after an 11-0 start by its opponent as the Wildcats fell to Hampton Bays, 51-30, in their first League VI loss Tuesday.
“Being down 11-0 was a problem,” Shoreham-Wading River head coach Adam Lievre said. “We talked a little bit about that before the game — I don’t know if I jinxed us — but we played hard. Offensively, at times, we struggled to score, and against a team that can shoot the ball well from the outside, it’s hard for us to trade missed layups for them to get open threes.”
Shoreham-Wading River sophomore guard Mikayla Dwyer put the Wildcats’ first points on the board, and junior forward Lindsey McKenna followed right behind her. Dwyer was fouled heading to the basket after her team forced a turnover, and she sank her first free-throw attempt to cut the deficit, 11-5.
The Baymen went on another tare, this time scoring six straight points, before McKenna scored another field goal. Hampton Bays countered with a field goal of its own, and added a long field goal at the buzzer to bring the score to 22-7.
“Execution is hard,” Lievre said. “We do as much as we can, and sometimes they fall and sometimes they don’t. Tonight was a night where, early on, in the first couple of minutes, they didn’t fall, and it led to a hole that we just couldn’t recover from.”
The hole continued to grow, despite junior guard Jesse Arline coming off the bench to score half of the team’s points in the second stanza, with a long field goal and a three-pointer. At the end of the eight minutes, the Wildcats fell behind 38-17.
“We just need to strategize, but there’s no problem with effort,” Arline said. “We tried really hard and we did a good job. I think movement of the ball was really good. Some of our shots weren’t landing, but you need to play fast against a team like that.”
Lievre said he agreed that despite the loss, he’s never had a problem with his girls giving him their all.
“My girls always play hard until the very end,” he said. “We never have to question effort or intensity, we just have to execute offensively. I never have to worry about them putting everything into a game, because they will — they’ll battle no matter what the score is, good or bad.”
McKenna led the team with six points on the evening, Arline and Dwyer tacked on five apiece, junior forward Maddy Bottari and junior forward Sophie Triandafils finished with four each, junior guard Mackenzie Zajac added three, and junior guard Sam Higgins and junior forward Maria Smith rounded out the scoring with two points and one point, respectively.
The Wildcats were off to a 3-0 start in the league before the loss. The head coach said that although the team is halfway to the playoffs wins-wise, they still have some tough competition ahead when they travel to Elwood-John Glenn tomorrow at 4:15 p.m., and then host Mount Sinai on Tuesday at 4 p.m.
Arline said her team would recover from the loss and use it to fuel them for their upcoming league matchups.
“We lost, and we’ll take it as a learning experience,” she said. “We’ll put what we’ve learned here into the game ahead. We try to keep a game-to-game mindset, so we’re just worried about the next opponent.”
Lievre also thinks his team will be more prepared moving forward. He liked some of what he saw, and hopes that if his team can execute, they’ll have a better shot of remaining in games against tough opponents.
“There were a lot of good looks and good shots I’d like to repeat again, we’ve just got to hope next time that they fall for us,” he said. “It’s one game; we’ll regroup and move on.”
Despite a 66-55 loss to Sachem East Monday, the Ward Melville boys’ basketball team can rest easier knowing it has three leading three-point shooters, including freshman shooting guard Ray Grabowski, who scored 17 points on the evening off five trifectas and a field goal.
“We need to play a little harder, smarter and we could have played better defense,” he said. “But I think we’re all pretty good at shooting three-pointers. I took the shots where I felt they would go in and I made them, so it felt pretty good today.”
Ward Melville senior Tim Specht put the first points on the board with a layup, but Sachem East scored the next six points to take the lead before Ward Melville junior forward Dominic Pryor nailed his first of three three-pointers in the first quarter to cut the deficit to one, 6-5.
“I think we played good, but we just could’ve used a lot more effort,” Pryor said. “They outplayed us.”
Ward Melville sophomore Brendan Martin also swished a three-point field goal, but by the end of the first eight minutes, Sachem East was up 18-16.
The Patriots nailed seven three-pointers in the first half alone, as Martin tacked on his final trifecta and Grabowski added two more, but the team was still behind 32-31 as a result of sending too many Sachem East players to the foul line.
“Our guys are comfortable shooting from anywhere; we practice it,” Ward Melville first-year head coach Alexander Piccirillo said. “Everyone has the green light, so they can shoot it from wherever they want when they’re open.”
Ward Melville scored the first four points of the third stanza to take a 35-32 lead, but the Patriots had some breakdowns on defense, leading to nine straight Sachem East points.
The two teams scored, and Ward Melville couldn’t cut the deficit after Sachem East’s tare, leading to a 47-41 score by the end of 24 minutes.
“I think that we didn’t really play so well, but we were in it until the end,” junior point guard Noah Kepes said. “We’ll continue to do what we do every day in practice, but continuing working on our shooting will help in the future.”
Grabowski managed three more three-pointers in the final quarter, but fouls proved to be a lingering issue, as Sachem East scored 10 points off free throws alone.
“Our intensity definitely decreased when we saw they were gaining on that lead, but that can’t happen anymore,” Pryor said. “We need to work on playing as a team and not letting one or two players take all the shots.”
Piccirillo said he thinks his team played hard for half of the final eight minutes, where the team used a 1-and-1 opportunity to pull within two points, 51-49, but the team would only manage six more points to Sachem East’s 15.
“I don’t think we played with the right effort to win the game,” Piccirillo said. “We played hard for like four minutes and then it kind of fell apart. We’ll just make sure that we play for all 32 minutes next game.”
Tracey Budd’s son died of a heroin overdose in September 2012.
One year later, Budd, of Rocky Point, was asked to speak at the North Shore Youth Council. Since then, she’s ended up on a public service announcement, “Not My Child,” that’s shown in high schools and middle schools along the North Shore, aiding her in becoming an advocate for drug abuse prevention and rehabilitation. She also teamed up with another mother, Debbie Longo, of Miller Place, and the two have become advocates for prevention and rehabilitation along the North Shore.
It is because of their hard work and dedication to this issue on Long Island that they are 2015 Times Beacon Record Newspapers People of the Year.
“I made the decision not to be ashamed of how he passed away,” Budd said about her son. “Just from speaking that one time at North Shore Youth Council, it was so very healing for me, and so many things have come from that and taken me in a direction that I never thought I’d be in, but it seems like it’s my calling.”
Janene Gentile, a drug and alcohol counselor and executive director of the North Shore Youth Council, helped work on that PSA.
“It was very powerful,” she said. “It was walking her through her grief. She has a lot of courage.”
Budd, who is also a member of Families in Support of Treatment, pulled together as much information as she could, and this past October created a Facebook page — North Shore Drug Awareness Advocates — pooling together families from Rocky Point, Miller Place, Mount Sinai and Shoreham-Wading River to spread the word about the rising concern over dangerous drugs, like heroin, growing in popularity across the Island.
“It just seemed that so many people were inboxing me and asking me for help,” she said. “I created the page so we could have a centralized area where we share information, and organize meetings where the group could all meet up. I also organized meetings once a month so we could to teach people about advocacy.”
Having a 12-year-old daughter, Cristina Dimou attended the meetings to begin to gather information on the issue. About one week ago, someone Dimou knows suffered an unexpected overdose, she said. She immediately reached out to Budd asking for guidance.
“She gave me three phone numbers telling me who to call for what and even gave me websites of rehabilitation centers,” Dimou said about Budd. “She checks up on me every day, asking me if I’m okay and what’s going on. I don’t know her personally, but she had a sense of urgency and a willingness to help. I think that speaks volumes.”
Legislator Sarah Anker (D-Mount Sinai) said with Budd’s outspokenness and Longo’s long-standing knowledge of the issue, they’ll be successful in their efforts.
“These women put their energy, their anger, their frustration, their sorrow into something that is helpful to the community,” she said. “I think they’re going to do amazing work.”
Longo has been involved in advocacy across the Island for the last five years, after her son suffered an overdose 10 years ago. Since then, her son has recovered, and currently lives in Del Ray, Florida as a director of marketing for a rehabilitation center called Insight to Recovery.
She said she found sending her son out of state helped him recover, because once he was done with his treatment, he wasn’t going back to seeing the same people he knew when he was using.
But she too has been involved in outreach and drug abuse prevention, aside from being to co-administrator of Budd’s Facebook page.
“I get a call just about every day from a parent saying they have a kid that’s addicted and they don’t know what to do,” she said. “We’re losing kids left and right. We’re losing a generation, is what we’re losing.”
Longo is a part of a 501(c)3 not-for-profit program, Steered Straight, which spreads prevention in schools. Recovered addict Michael DeLeon leads the program.
“You can hear a pin drop in the auditorium, that’s how dynamic of a speaker he is,” she said. “I can’t tell you how many kids come up to us at the end of the program and say, ‘I have a problem.’”
Longo was the chapter coordinator for New York State for a website called The Addict’s Mom, and is currently the head of Before the Petals Fall, Magnolia Addiction Support’s New York chapter. She is a 12-step yoga teacher to recovering addicts, and does post-traumatic stress disorder programs to help those dealing with grief.
After leaving nursing to go into medical marketing for hospitals, Longo said she thought she’d know where to turn when she found out her son was an addict, but said she really didn’t know what to do.
“There was such a bad stigma about addiction that you didn’t want to talk about it — you kind of suffered in silence,” she said. “If I was a nurse and had these contacts and didn’t know what to do, the average mother may have no idea. I’m trying to open the community up to what we have here on the North Shore.”
Longo has helped mothers like Sheila “Terry” Littler, of Rocky Point, whose son is a second-time recovering heroin addict. Currently, he is three months sober.
Knowing about treatment and where to get help, because it was something that started for her 13 years ago, Littler reached out to Longo for mental support.
“It was nice to have somebody else that’s gone through it to talk to, to know you’re not alone,” Littler said. “But at the same time, it’s sad that I’m not alone.”
When her son relapsed after being four and a half years sober, she reached out to Budd.
“It takes a lot of guts to come out in the open and do this and help people,” she said. “There are a lot of hurting people out there.”
She recently reached out to Longo about a friend of her son, who is a drug user, and the two were calling each other back and forth to find ways to overcome addiction.
“She cared to take the time to help me,” she said. “She spent a whole day doing that with me — that’s dedication right there.”
With the contacts Longo’s made with support centers and prevention agencies and Budd’s relationship with the county after creating the PSA, the two are teaming up to use their resources to form a coalition based on the Facebook page. It was also have the same name.
It’s in its early stages, but the hope is to help spread awareness about prevention through schools. As part of a coalition, Budd said, you can also apply for grants, which she hopes will help fund the spread of their advocacy.
“I felt Tracey was on the same path that I was on,” Longo said. “She is as tenacious as I am in what we’re trying to do.”
Longo said that she and Budd are trying to be vigilantes and have started Narcan training classes, like ones they’ve previously hosted in Miller Place and East Setauket, to continue to help fight the Island’s drug addiction problem. Narcan is a medication that stops opioid overdoses.
“I think together we’re a good team,” Budd said. “To me, you have a choice. You can either dig your head in the sand and be embarrassed that your child is an addict, or you can be proactive and say, ‘Enough of this, let’s help each other.’ When you speak to another parent that’s going through it, there’s a bond that you automatically create. In a way, I feel like my son is right there with me, helping these families. It’s very important to me, and I’m never going to stop doing it.”
Shoreham-Wading River High School’s “Tommy Tough” slogan is not only changing the culture of the Wildcats football team — it’s changing the community.
When Tom Cutinella passed away from an on-field collision last year, sophomore Ryan Ledda was right in the middle of thinking about what he should do for his Eagle Scout project. Ledda didn’t know Tom, but his sister Gabriella did, and after seeing how the loss affected her, coupled with what he saw during a Clemson University football game, his memorial idea was born.
“Before each game, the Clemson team comes onto the field touching a memorial called Howard’s Rock, and I figured I could do something similar to that,” Ryan Ledda said. “That the team could come out and touch the memorial for good luck before each home game. My goal is that everyone in the school could be connected to Tom without him being there. So no one will forget him.”
First, Ledda presented the idea to high school Principal Dan Holtzman, before going to the board of education.
“I thought it was an impressive one,” Holtzman said. “It was well-received by the board of education and they gave Ryan the go-ahead. I think it is a meaningful and thoughtful project and one that I hope encourages students at all grade levels to engage in community-oriented projects.”
The proposal was a 4- by 20-foot retaining wall on a pre-existing hill on the field that would have a concrete base with pavers stacked on top. In the middle will be a pedestal with a bronze bust of Cutinella. The bronze piece will be life size.
“I thought it was a very big project — I was very nervous,” Ledda’s mother Jennifer Ledda said. “I myself didn’t know the Cutinellas, but after Ryan went to the board and got approval I met Mrs. Cutinella. I found out how the boy was outstanding in every aspect of what he does. It reminded me of all of the kids who do good.”
According to Ryan Ledda, the project is estimated to cost $30,000-$40,000. The approval was quick by the board, but the approval by Boy Scout Troop 161 in Shoreham took longer.
“You need to fill out a long application and they send it back with improvements and revisions,” he said. “But they thought it was a great idea. A lot of the Eagle board members knew Tom’s family so they wanted to help out. Once they heard how much it was going to cost they got a little freaked out, but I told them how I was going to raise money and how important it was because of how Tom affected the community.”
To help fund the project, bricks are being sold that can be engraved, to rest atop the base. Smaller bricks cost $125, while larger ones cost $250.
“Those who went to school with him will always remember him, but kids to come that didn’t know him might not, so hopefully this can help them honor Tom,” Ledda said.
The sophomore created a website where the bricks can be purchased, and he handed out flyers in front of the school that were donated by a local printing company. To purchase a brick, go to www.bricksrus.com/order/bsatroop161. There is also a GoFundMe account raising funds for the base of the memorial and bronze statue.
The goal is to reach $20,000. Currently, 34 people have donated a combined $3,271 in the last month. Fourteen of those people have donated $54 or $154, representing Cutinella’s jersey No. 54. To donate to this project, go to www.gofundme.com/tomcmemorial.
For Shoreham-Wading River varsity football coach Matt Millheiser, he thinks all projects done in Cutinella’s name have been beneficial for the community.
“Outside of football, you see so many projects and so many things done — whether it’s a run or a blood drive or this Eagle Scout project — that are done in Tom’s name, he said. “It really shows the impact he had as a person and some of the good things that are being done by his friends and family and even people that didn’t know him, in the things they do throughout their lives. I think it is part of his long-standing effect.”
As for the memorial, the head coach knows it will only add to the field.
“I think it’s a great, worthy cause and idea — they’re all good things to remember their friend and brother who was lost,” Millheiser said. “‘Tommy Tough’ kind of changed the culture of Shoreham-Wading River football and the way the kids viewed how they went to work, how they practiced and how they prepared and how they carried themselves, and it really speaks to his legacy.”
Kris Cheslock wasn’t happy with the way he was practicing last Thursday night and walked into the locker room feeling defeated, as head coach Keith Buehler followed behind for a pep talk. The next time they went into the locker room together, Friday night, they were celebrating a huge win.
“We have a terrific relationship,” the Port Jefferson head boys’ basketball coach said of he and his junior forward. “We had a nice man-to-man talk, so for him to have the game he had tonight after what he was battling last night, it touches my heart. I love these kids and I’m just so happy for him.”
Cheslock scored a game-high 34 points and knocked in a layup with 21 seconds left to break a tie, giving the Royals a home court win over Greenport, 60-58.
“It’s a great uplift,” Cheslock said of his game and the team’s win. “I was feeling down last night and this was a great way to come back up.”
He scored 12 of the team’s 19 first-quarter points — adding stats in each category with two three-pointers, two layups and two free-throw points — but the team fell behind 24-19. Both teams were slow to get on the board in the second, but the Royals were able to narrow the gap to 34-31 by halftime.
“It was a tough one and a pivotal game to start the season,” Port Jefferson senior forward Michael Spyrou said. “We’re already 0-1 so it was good to get a win here at home.”
The third stanza proved to be much like the first, with Cheslock scoring eight points, but Greenport maintained its three-point lead, 46-43, by the end of the next eight minutes.
The fourth quarter was when the game caught fire.
With 6:09 left to play, Greenport jumped out to a 52-44 lead.
Spyrou missed a 1-and-1 attempt, but sank the rebound for two points and stole a pass that lead to a Cheslock field goal. Seconds later Cheslock added another to make it a two-point game, 52-50. With 3:27 left to play, he intercepted a pass and nailed a long field goal to tie the game, and the crowd erupted. It didn’t last for long, though, as Greenport scored four points off two free throws and a layup, to maintain a 56-52 edge.
Cheslock swished a field goal to make it 56-54 and Greenport tacked on another two free throws, but Spyrou grabbed a rebound for the score and was fouled, swishing his extra point to make it a one-point game, 58-57.
“Me and my teammate Cheslock got the ball to each other and were able to score,” said Spyrou, who was next in line behind his comrade with 18 points and eight rebounds. “Our teammates were getting us the ball, we were getting the looks we wanted and that’s what we go over in practice and we hope to see out on the court.”
Cheslock finally got what he had been pushing for when, with 21.4 seconds remaining, he nailed another field goal — this time to give his team the lead, 59-58, and ultimately the win. Again the gym shook with excitement.
“It was a rush,” Cheslock said. “It’s electric — everyone is rooting for you in the crowd and it feels great.”
The team and the fans were matching each other’s excitement during the last few minutes of the game.
“I kept telling my teammates not to give up, that we got this, we’re going to win, we’re going to pull through,” he said. “And we did.”
Greenport was fouled with 9.7 seconds left on the clock, but missed both opportunities to tie or grab the lead. With 7.6 seconds left to play, Spyrou tacked on the final point of the game off a free throw.
“I’m very impressed because we’re a young team,“ Buehler said. “They’ve never really been in a game like that, so I was a little scared. … [But] they were resilient, they stuck around, they stayed calm and they won the game.”
The Newfield football team continues to make history.
The Wolverines were named Suffolk County’s top team last Monday, earning the Rutgers Trophy at the Suffolk County Football Coaches Association banquet at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Hauppauge. But that wasn’t the only award the team walked away with.
To continue a season of firsts, as the school recorded a 12-0 record, including three shutouts, for the greatest season in Newfield’s 58-year history, senior halfback Elijah Riley became the first Newfield player to garner the 54th Carl A. Hansen Award, presented to Suffolk’s top player.
The 6-foot, 200-pound star rushed for 1,012 yards and scored a school-record 31 touchdowns. He finished with 1,934 all-purpose yards.
Riley also earned the school’s first Tom Cassese Award, presented to the top defensive back, after allowing only three pass receptions and recording three interceptions, two forced fumbles and 66 tackles, 45 of which were solo.
Defensive end Dylan Ferrari earned the fifth annual Rob Burnett Award, given to Suffolk’s top defensive player. Despite suffering a broken left thumb when he fell midway through the fourth quarter of a 31-7 win over North Babylon in the Suffolk County Division II semifinal, Ferrari played through the pain in the final two games of his high school career with a soft protective glove around his hand.
Ferrari finished the season with 71 tackles, including 32 solo tackles, and 18 for a loss of yards. The 6-foot, 1-inch, 236-point, two-way starter forced many botched throws and turnovers as a result. He also recorded a team-high 11 sacks and two forced fumbles.
Senior Jelani Greene recorded another first, winning the National Football Foundation Award, given to Suffolk’s top wide receiver.
Steven Hoynacky, a standout on special teams, was awarded the Tom Cutinella Memorial Scholarship Award, named in honor of the former Shoreham-Wading River player who died after an on-field collision in 2014.
Like Cutinella, the tight end and defensive end was not only a quality player on the team, but excelled in leadership, character and academics. He is treasurer of the school’s National Honor Society and maintains a 92 GPA.
Although not winning an award, Newfield’s record-breaking senior quarterback Ryan Klemm passed for 31 touchdowns this season.
The Wolverines set a Suffolk record for points scored in a season with 518. The team beat Half Hollow Hills West 58-34 to capture the Suffolk Division II title. A week later, the Wolverines earned the school’s second Long Island Class II championship with a 41-33 win over MacArthur. Newfield earned 27 first-place votes to earn the Rutgers Trophy, and totaled 120 points to edge runner-up Sayville, which had 19 first-place votes and 108 points. Shoreham-Wading River was third with 46 points.
“I am one of those believers that if you don’t know your history, your life is not complete,” Miller Place-Mount Sinai Historical Society Archivist Edna Davis Giffen said. “I believe that you need to not just look forward, but you need to look backward to appreciate what was done before, so that you can carry on into the future.”
That’s why she and Mount Sinai Civic Association President Ann Becker decided to collaborate on a single book about the history of the neighboring hamlets that would serve as a continuation of both of the individual books they each previously published.
Becker published a book on the history of Mount Sinai in 2003, while Giffen completed one on Miller Place in 2010. Their latest effort is called “Miller Place and Mount Sinai Through Time” and was released in November.
“I’ve always had a love of history, especially local history,” Becker said. “There wasn’t a lot available for young students to learn about their local community, and the books were provided for the curriculum to look at the documented history of our community and help people understand the rich history here.”
Becker, who received a doctorate in American history from Stony Brook University, is a Long Island history professor at Empire State College who has lived in Mount Sinai since 1982, and has been a member of the civic on and off since 1984, becoming its president four years ago. She was involved in the creation of the Heritage Trust board that was instrumental in creating Mount Sinai Heritage Park.
“I love local history,” she said. “History has always been important to me. It’s nice for people to realize that there are dedicated volunteers working hard presently to maintain the quality of life here.”
Community members like Brad Arrington, the civic vice president and corresponding secretary, have noticed Becker’s passion.
“She’s very civic-oriented and I think that’s not a term that people really use or appreciate anymore, in the sense that she really wants to do the best she can for the Mount Sinai community,” he said. “All the work she does, including the book, shows how much she cares about the community and how much she wants to help preserve our heritage.”
He said being civic-minded shapes how she addresses local problems and informs her opinions about the future growth and development of the town.
“I think the book is wonderful,” he said. “I think particularly for folks that might not have lived in Mount Sinai for decades to see the character of Mount Sinai. It also helps show people what’s left from the past and can help galvanize community members to help preserve those pieces of history that remain in our community.”
Giffen, who is a 12th-generation Miller Place resident now living in Mount Sinai, has been a member of the historical society since 1980 and became president when the restoration of the William Miller House was first beginning in that decade.
“I enjoy being part of the history,” she said. “We’ve developed so much since the 1960s that people don’t realize how much country there was here.”
Sharing this information with residents was something that drove her to work on her books.
“It needed to be done,” she said. “Lots of people don’t know what this place was like before the major settlement. I thought it was quite interesting working on the books, because when you see [the area] every day, you don’t pay attention to how much has changed.”
Becker said with the new book, the idea is to have an old picture and a new one side-by-side, to compare what the area used to look like and what it is now.
“We had fun taking the pictures to compare to the old ones that we had in the archives,” Becker said. “It’s a new look at Mount Sinai and Miller Place through time. It gives you that historical context, but it’s bringing us up to modern time. We thought it was important for the community to understand that being involved can have some really good results.”
The two authors received information and pictures from various people to help construct the book and Ann Donato, who has been on the historical society board for 15 years, said the book holds substantial importance.
“This area is so rich in history, going back pre-Revolutionary War,” she said. “We really need to let people know our past so we can understand the present and also the travels that we have taken as a nation.”
She believes Giffen is important to the community as well.
“Edna is so knowledgeable,” she said. “If anyone ever calls me with a question about the area or about a house, Edna has it at the tip of her fingertips. Edna is a treasure to our society.”
Although the two are experts and important in preserving and spreading the history of the area, they do it simply because they believe it’s vital.
“People should know about where they live,” Giffen said. “Everything in the future is based on the past.”