The Shoreham-Wading River Wildcats varsity football team blew out Center Moriches 41-12 on the road Sept. 21. The win improves the Wildcats’ record to 2-1 this season. SWR will host Elwood-John Glenn Sept. 28 at 6 p.m.
Shoreham-Wading River High School seniors were met with applause and cheers as they accepted their diplomas during the class of 2018 commencement ceremony June 23.
After the processional and National Anthem, sung by senior Jack Flatley with ASL interpretation by Victoria Ann Holden, high school Principal Frank Pugliese addressed the crowd. Opening remarks were presented by salutatorian Calvin Schmalzle and senior Alexandra Melt followed him by singing “Go the Distance” from Disney’s Hercules, before valedictorian Christian Wesselborg bid the class farewell.
By Jim Ferchland
Shoreham-Wading River can always count on the Xavier Arline’s attack.
The sophomore, fueled by a recent loss 10-5 loss at home to Mount Sinai, scored four goals and added four assists in a 13-8 win at Bayport-Blue Point April 6.
“My team goal, at the end of the day, is to just help the team win as much as possible,” said the University of North Carolina commit. “The team played as a unit today. I think everyone played their role — the producers produced.”
Arline and senior Zach Colucci alone were too much for the Phantoms to handle. Colucci capitalized on four of his own opportunities and assisted on another. Senior Kyle Boden tallied a hat trick and an assist and classmate Tim Cairo had a score and two helpers.
“Senior leadership stepped up big time,” assistant coach Brian Baker said. “We had some highs and lows but the boys responded well. We actually played lacrosse together as a team.”
The Wildcats jumped out to an early 3-0 lead in just over seven minutes of action. Arline scored once in that span and added two more unassisted goals to give Shoreham-Wading River a 5-1 lead heading into the second quarter.
Bayport-Blue Point cut the deficit to 6-4 with an assist and goal from senior midfielder Tim Sacca, but it would be the closest the Phantoms would come. The Wildcats retaliated with two goals to increase their deficit back to four, with Arline scoring his fourth after grabbing a ground ball to stop the Phantoms’ scoring streak.
Shoreham-Wading River scored three times in the third, with Cairo assisting on two, to Bayport-Blue Point’s one.
Arline assisted the Wildcats’ final two goals from Colucci and Boden to give his team a 13-6 edge, its largest lead of the game. Bayport-Blue responded with two unassisted goals by junior midfielder James Ringer and senior attacker Sal Locascio, but it was too little too late.
Shoreham-Wading River’s took on Eastport-South Manor at home April 11, but results were not available by press time. The Wildcats are back at it taking on West Babylon on the road April 13 at 4:30 p.m.
Junior's 22 points leads Mustangs to sixth straight win
Gabby Sartori shines no matter the stage.
The Mount Sinai junior and three-sport standout scored her 1,000th career point Dec. 12 in a 45-21 nonleague win over Shoreham-Wading River. She finished with a game-high 22 points, eight rebounds and six steals, and basketball isn’t even her primary sport of choice. Sartori started her athletic career playing soccer but has committed to play lacrosse at Brown University.
“When it’s soccer season, I focus on soccer, when it’s basketball, basketball, and when it’s lacrosse season, it’s crunch time,” Sartori said, laughing. “But I treat them all the same. It keeps me more versatile.”
The junior’s dedication to each sport is the key to her success, according to one of her biggest fans.
“She’s often the last one to leave, staying after practice to take extra shots; always doing
the extra,” her father Jim Sartori said. “This has been going on since she was a varsity player in seventh grade. She understands nothing worth achieving is easy.”
Sartori needed five points to reach the career milestone heading into the contest against the Wildcats. She started the first quarter slowly, scoring on the back end of two free-throws at the 4:27 mark, and adding a field goal a minute later for a 5-2 Mustangs lead. She was fouled on her next drive to the basket with less than a minute left in the quarter and again scored on her second shot to pull within one point of 1,000 and put Mount Sinai up 11-2 heading into the second quarter.
Throughout the first eight minutes of the contest, she said achieving the feat was all she could think about.
“I tried not to pay attention to it, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it,” she said, adding that she looked up at her parents in the stands once during that span.
Sartori cashed in a layup to open the scoring just seconds into the next stanza, and looked up at her parents once more and smiled.
“It hit me once coach called timeout and I got the ball,” she said of being handed over a special Spalding to recognize the achievement. “It shows my hard work. I make sure I’m the first one shooting and the last one at practice, until they’re annoyed I’m still there.”
Her father smiled back at who he calls a “fantastic kid and special athlete.”
“It’s a proud moment,” he said of seeing his daughter’s success. “It’s plenty of hours of practice and training to get to the point that she’s at. It didn’t come easy, clearly, but by way of hard work. I told her to do whatever it takes to help the team win and stay humble.”
Although Sartori stood out with her aggressiveness on both sides of the ball, she was quick to credit her teammates for making her look good.
“The chemistry on this team is very, very good this year,” she said. “We all love each other, and it’s great to see that, especially on the court. I’m glad I can always lean on them — they have my back, and I have theirs.
Without a doubt, any one of us are always willing to give up the ball without flinching.”
Mount Sinai head coach Jeff Koutsantanou had plenty to say postgame about his star player, though he didn’t focus just on her ability to score points.
“She did a great job getting to the basket, she did a nice job incorporating everybody and defensively she had six steals and eight rebounds, so she had a great all-around game,” he said of Sartori. “She was a little under pressure because she was worried about the 1,000 points, but she really settled in.”
The guard led a balanced attack the rest of the way, scoring six more points in the second and six in the third to help Mount Sinai to a 39-14 lead before sitting most of the fourth quarter.
Juniors Holly McNair and Margaret Kopceinski finished with eight points each, and classmate Brooke Cergol added four. All three played strong defense, stealing some passes and forcing the Wildcats to make sloppy ones that led to more turnovers.
Losing key starters Victoria Johnson and Veronica Venezia wasn’t easy for Mount Sinai, which won its first county crown last season, but Koutsantanou said the girls are filling in the holes nicely. The Mustangs have a perfect 6-0 record so far to show for it.
“I thought Holly McNair did a nice job on the boards, she played great defense, was strong rebounding,” he said. “But I thought on the whole the girls did exceptionally well and played great as a team, especially on
defense. I really loved Margaret and Holly’s effort, I thought Brooke was outstanding with her passes and her choices. As a group they all played well together, and I think that’s a compliment to them — how they look out for each other, help each other on defense. They really do a great job together.”
Mount Sinai opens league play today, Dec. 14, at Amityville at 4 p.m. Sartori said the milestone is only the start of what she hopes she and her team can achieve this season.
“We want to prove we can do it again,” she said of winning the county title. “We have to repeat history.”
By Bill Landon
Smithtown West looked to shake off the cobwebs early this season, hosting Walt Whitman in a nonleague matchup Dec. 9, but a slow start for the Bulls left them in a deficit they could never recover from, falling 76-38.
Walt Whitman found its 3-point game early, hitting two in the opening minutes during a 10-0 run before Smithtown West called timeout. Down 14-0 after the break, Smithtown West junior guard Gabrianna Lorefice split her chances from the free-throw line to take the goose egg off the scoreboard with just over a minute left in the opening quarter.
With 4:28 left before the halftime break now trailing 24-9, sophomore forward Jillian Meaney hit a 3-pointer to close the gap, but the Wildcats countered with three triples of their own to take a commanding 40-16 lead into the locker room.
The Bulls held their own under the boards with aggressive rebounding that resulted in several jump balls, but struggled in transition and getting the ball to fall in the net.
“I saw some good things from players that haven’t had much playing time who have come up from junior varsity so that’s good, but defensively and transition-wise we need to do a better job,” Smithtown West head coach Katie Combs said. “I saw a lot of strength underneath the board even though [Walt Whitman] had the [height] advantage there.”
Senior guard Lauren Soriano opened the second half with a 3-pointer, and Meaney hit her second triple of the game but again Walt Whitman countered to keep the edge.
The Bulls found themselves down by 34 points midway through the final quarter, a hole too deep to climb out of. Lorefice led her team in scoring with eight points, sophomore Madison Flynn followed with seven and Meaney tacked on six.
Smithtown West has one more nonleague game, a Dec. 13 home game against Northport at 6 p.m., before beginning league play Dec. 19 in a home opener at 4 p.m.
“What’s helpful is that we’re able to fix our offensive mistakes, but today we felt a tremendous amount of pressure,” Combs said. “For next week we’re looking to get our first win and carry that momentum into our first league game and then build from there.”
By Desirée Keegan & Bill Landon
The Miller Place football team has seemingly been playing catch-up all season, and with a 21-14 homecoming win over Shoreham-Wading River Oct. 14, the Panthers have climbed up another rung on the ladder toward their destination: the top of the Division IV leaderboard.
“It’s kind of been our M.O. all season — we’ve been playing catch up a lot this year, but the kids believe,” Miller Place head coach Greg Murphy said. “They believe that they’re going to get it done and these kids have tremendous character. I couldn’t be prouder of this bunch.”
The Panthers snapped the Wildcats’ 12-game winning streak, and with the victory, also avenged a 49-6 blowout at the hands of Shoreham-Wading River in the Suffolk County semifinals last season. Junior tight end Tom Nealis sealed the homecoming victory with a 5-yard go-ahead touchdown catch from senior quarterback Anthony Seymour with six minutes left in the game.
Seymour faked a handoff and dropped back to pass to Nealis, running a slant pattern, who despite having double coverage on him, came down with the ball as he slid on his knees in the end zone.
“Our defense played their butts off — we only allowed 14 points from a lethal offense [like theirs],” Nealis said. “We ended their 12-game winning streak. They came here [on our homecoming] and we ended it — that really means a lot.”
During that game-winning play, Nealis was matched up with Shoreham-Wading River sophomore quarterback and defensive back Xavier Arline, who had a 48-yard touchdown run of his own in the game.
“Arline, he’s a great defender,” Seymour said. “But [Nealis] came down with the ball for the touchdown — he’s been really big for us this year.”
Shoreham-Wading River senior running back Kyle Boden struck first for the Wildcats, but things changed when he went down with a knee injury late in the third quarter and sat out the rest of the game.
Miller Place’s Sebastian Cannon helped propel the Panthers to tie the game up first, after the Wildcats jumped out to a 14-0 lead with three minutes left in the first half. The junior running back returned a kickoff 60 yards before being forced out of bounds at the 8-yard line, and then finished what he started two plays later on a 14-yard dash into the end zone for his team’s first score. He also ran in an 8-yard touchdown to tie the game on the way to 48 yards on eight attempts in the contest.
“We jumped on them early, and we had a chance to capitalize on that momentum, but I think one of the big plays was that kickoff return after [our] second touchdown,” Shoreham-Wading River head coach Matt Millheiser said. “It was a big return which gave them some momentum — it got the crowd into it because they had been quiet for awhile. When they scored on that drive, that put us on our heels.”
Cannon said his team was poised to make the plays needed to turn the game around.
“I was confident that we could make a comeback — giving us momentum going into the second half,” Cannon said. “But it was our defense that won the game for us.”
Shoreham-Wading River and Miller Place are now tied at 5-1 behind undefeated Babylon in the standings. The Wildcats have dominated their division like few other Long Island teams ever have, winning the last three Long Island championship titles. No team has ever won four straight since the LIC began in 1992.
“In the end they out played us, they out coached us; they did a great job and they beat us all the way around,” Millheiser said. “We’ve been here before, so we’ll get back to work on Monday [to get ready for Babylon at 6 p.m. Oct. 20] and see if we can right the ship.”
By Bill Landon
With Port Jefferson cross country runner Aileen Schretzmayer nagged by injury and Shoreham-Wading River superstar Katherine Lee out on a college visit, both teams struggled to perform up to par during the St. Anthony’s Invitational Oct. 6.
Since Lee, who ran the Sunken Meadow State Park course in 18 minutes, 10 seconds, currently the fastest girl in Suffolk County according to her coach, was visiting Stanford University to narrow down her college choices for next fall, junior Alexandra Smith was first across the 5K finish line for the Wildcats.
Out of 300 runners, Smith placed 11th with a time of 20:38.50 behind first-place finisher Maggie Maier, a sophomore from Sacred Heart who finished in 19:39.
“I was first [for my team] because Katherine wasn’t here, but it was my personal best,” Smith said. “The toughest part of the course for me was the down hills, but I’m pretty good at running up.”
Lee currently sits atop the Class B leader board and is ranked No. 8 in the nation and No. 2 out of all seniors, according to Shoreham Wading-River head coach Paul Koretzki.
The coach was pleased with his team’s eighth-place overall finish, especially given the outcome for a handful of his runners.
“The first five ran their fastest times today,” he said. “The only Class B team that beat us was Kings Park, by a couple of points, and with Katherine we would’ve been right up there, maybe even moved to third.”
Port Jefferson’s Schretzmayer was first to cross the finish line for the Royals in 24:51.14 placing 161st.
“It’s not her personal best,” Port Jefferson head coach Donald Slingerland said. “She’s been injured, so we’re trying to bring her back slowly.”
Second across the line for the Royals was junior Amanda Brosnan, who covered the distance in 28:23 for 250th.
Slingerland warned his girls to drink plenty of fluids during the warm day, and to slow down when they thought they needed to, especially on what Brosnan said is tough course.
“It was a really big race,” Brosnan said. “There’s a lot of people running today and people came to this race from Connecticut. Cardiac Hill — it’s like a quarter of a mile long, it’s steep and it’s dirt and it’s right in the middle of the course, [so when you get to it], you’re already pretty winded.”
Shoreham-Wading River sophomore Nicole Garcia, who clocked in at 21:55.50 for 38th, also spoke to the course’s demands.
“Cardiac Hill was definitely the hardest [part],” Garcia said. “It’s a very steep hill and you think it’s never going to end; it’s very difficult.”
Smithtown’s Catherine Farrell placed second, Gabrielle Schneider placed 6th and Emily Ginty wasn’t far behind in 12th. The trio gave the Bulls enough points to finish 4th in the team standings. Kings Park’s Bridget Roell placed 15th while the Kingsmen came in 6th overall.
In the 1.5-mile run, Ward Melville’s Briana Grant was the top-place finisher and teammate Julia Stafford crossed just inside the Top 10 with a 9th-place time to help the Patriots take first in the team standings. Kings Park’s Tanner Richter rounded out the Top 10.
Bob Szymanski and Paul Koretzki are used to winning together. With a combined 72 years and more than 100 seasons as cross-country, winter track and spring track and field coaches at Shoreham-Wading River High School, the dynamic duo has steered four decades of Wildcats toward victories and scholarships, and put the district on the map with a consistent winning record.
It’s no surprise the two veteran coaches — Szymanski, 70, the boys cross-country coach and Koretzki, 77, the girls cross-country coach — were recently recognized as coaches of the year by the New York State Public High School Athletic Association. While they take different approaches to the job, with Koretzki as a hard-nosed, numbers-based wiz and Szymanski cracking jokes and belting out Bobby Darin songs during practice, the pair work best together.
“I like to call them Abbott and Costello,” said Mark Passamonte, the school’s athletic director, during the district’s Sept. 12 board of education meeting. The coaches were recognized by board members for their accolade, which measured their number of years coaching, career records and status as positive role models within the school and community. They are now eligible for national coach of the year awards.
“I’ve worked with both of these gentlemen for the last four years and they are outstanding,” Passamonte said. “They bring such wisdom and great humor to the cross-country program.”
Koretzki and Szymanski joined forces this past winter and spring as head coach and assistant coach, respectively, and, as a result, the girls 4×1-mile relay team took home the national title for both seasons. The boys fall team, so far, under Szymanski’s leadership, boasts a 5-0 record, triumphant against Sayville and Mount Sinai at recent meets.
Koretzki started coaching girls cross-country at the school in 1980 and suggested to the district it hire Szymanski, who had coached in the Center Moriches and Amityville schools, a year later when a job opened for the boys team. The two have not had a single argument since they met in the 1970s.
“The only thing I have against Bobby is he beat me in a race once in 1976,” Koretzki joked at the podium before thanking the board. “It’s a very nice honor and not the kind of thing we expected.”
During an interview, Szymanski said of his career alongside Koretzki, “We’re meant to do this job together for some reason. We work so well, he and I. He can cover me and I can cover for him. Paul is one of the most organized guys, he’s tremendous.”
“If you make practice tougher than meets, then they’re not afraid when it comes to competing.”
— Bob Syzmanski
In terms of their coaching strategies, the pair said not much has changed over the years.
Szymanski, who broke running records in high school and was cross-country captain at what is now Emporia State University in Kansas, pointed to techniques he learned from his own coaches, including middle-distance legend John Camien, as his foundation. Among his go-to workouts is one that “breaks the pain barrier.”
“Running is 50 percent physical and 50 percent mental,” he said. “When you run, and you feel discomfort, that’s when some people quit. You have to make the kids break that pain barrier in practice. If you make practice tougher than meets, then they’re not afraid when it comes to
competing at meets.”
He speaks highly of his runners, and said the best members on the team are often those who join merely to get in shape for other sports like lacrosse and football. Many of them end up with college scholarships, such as Bobby Andrews, a baseball player who joined the team in his freshman year in 2006 and was captain by senior year. He got a full ride to North Carolina State University, for which he has Szymanski to thank.
“Without him, I never would have ran,” Andrews said. “He’s a great motivator. There’s something about him that just makes you want to perform your best. I had a great group of teammates around and we all felt the same way about him.”
Andrews and his teammates were also one of many packs of high schoolers over the years who have been introduced to the sounds of Bobby Darin through the coach, who considers himself a lifelong fanatic of the “Beyond the Sea” singer.
“In my lifetime, I must’ve given away over 50 Bobby Darin CD’s as I buy them as gifts for people,” Szymanski said with glee. He saw Darin in concert numerous times, has his fair share of signed albums and was even featured in a Biography Channel special on the singer. “When I’m in my car, going to school or a meet, I’m listening to Darin.”
Spending most of his career teaching math, in the Brentwood school district and at Suffolk County Community College, Koretzki didn’t start running until he was 33, encouraged by a friend of his who ran in a marathon.
“What I love most about the job are the kids,” Koretzki said. “Especially the ones who really dedicate themselves and see great improvement. Just seeing their faces or when they give a thumbs up after a race, that’s really nice.”
“What I love most about the job are the kids. Especially the ones who dedicate themselves.”
— Paul Koretzki
As a coach, he said he’s been running the same drills for 38 years. He’s been described as “very direct” and not one to sugarcoat a bad performance, as a way to help his runners better themselves. Alexandra Hays, an All-American who was among the national champions this past winter and spring, and currently runs at Columbia University, said she was able to achieve so much because of his tutelage.
She said her coach “pushed us to strive to exceed his expectations,” recalling a particular interaction after the team won the 4×1-mile in the nationals.
“He came up to me and told me how proud he was of us and he knew we would be able to pull off what we had because of how hard we’d worked in our practices,” said Hays, considering it his most meaningful post-race talk because it was her last. “He doesn’t give meaningless compliments or false reassurance, so to hear this after five years running for him was the best way to end my high school career.”
While Szymanski said he would like to retire after 50 years as a public high school coach, with 48 under his belt at this point, Koretzki doesn’t plan on leaving anytime soon.
“I have nothing else to do,” Koretzki said with a laugh. “I’m not interested in soap operas so I might as well keep going.”
Wildcats win 49-12 to remain No. 2 in Division IV
By Bill Landon
Kyle Boden and Xavier Arline made Wyandanch pay for its kickoff return touchdown Sept. 23, combining for six scores to lead Shoreham-Wading River to a 49-12 homecoming win.
“Our offensive line did a great job today — they made so many holes,” Boden said. “We were a little slow to start the second half, but we picked it up and everybody was just flying around.”
Boden, a senior running back, powered his way up and down and scored all three of his touchdowns by the end of the first quarter. He finished the game with 108 yards on 12 carries. Arline scored on a 2-yard touchdown run, lunging to the left of two defenders, and again on a 45-yard run after a Wyandanch fumble. Senior Tyler McAuley, who was perfect on the day, split the uprights with each opportunity, and helped the team extend its advantage by nailing the extra-point kick attempt following the fumble recovery touchdown to put Shoreham-Wading River up 35-6 at the halftime break.
The team’s quarterback was quick to compliment the offensive line, and his kicker.
“I can run, but it doesn’t happen unless the linemen make the holes — they did their job,” Arline said. “[Tyler McAuley] did his job. He finished, and if we do that every week I feel that there’s no one that can stop us.”
Arline carried the ball 65 yards for a touchdown return of his own on the second-half kickoff. McAuley was money once again, to bring the score to 42-6.
“I’ve got to give credit to the entire field goal unit, if the snap was there, if the hold was there and the blocking was there, that gives me an opportunity,” McAuley said.
Wyandanch quarterback Dionte Jordan helped cut the deficit on a keeper, and for the second time the Warriors failed to convert a two-point conversion attempt.
Quarterback Noah Block took over as quarterback and the senior didn’t skip a beat, taking in his own touchdown for the final score of the game.
“We’re going to enjoy it for now,” Arline said, “but we’ve got to get back to looking at film and keep working, because we’ve got a good team coming up.”
The quarterback was referring to his team’s next opponent: Elwood-John Glenn.
Shoreham-Wading River head coach Matt Millheiser said depth in the Sept. 29 matchup will be an issue.
“We’ve got to find ways to give breaks for guys here and there,” he said. “We’re going to have to play deep into the fourth quarter because you can’t let a small lead or a small deficit become real big —exhaustion or a cramp or an injury will turn the tide.”
The Wildcats kick off against the Knights at 6 p.m. Arline said his team will work hard to be ready.
“They’re a good team,” Arline said of Elwood-John Glenn. “We take every team seriously but they’re just going to get harder and harder from here on out.”
By Bill Landon
Shoreham-Wading River was on a hot streak — scoring 27 goals in the first three games of the field hockey season, all of which were shutouts. That spotless streak came to an end with a 3-1 loss to a tough Harborfields team Sept. 12.
“We were very worried and concerned about Shoreham,” Harborfields head coach Lauren Desiderio said. “They were blowouts, and that’s beyond impressive.”
The Tornadoes showed no worry or concern, as midfielder Gianna Bifulco dished the ball off to forward Jenelle Bennardo for the first goal of the game 11 minutes in. Not used to playing on grass, the Wildcats seemed to struggle.
“The ball moves very slowly on grass, and everyone reaches the ball more quickly. but I think we adjusted well in the second half,” Shoreham-Wading River junior Michele Corona said. “We just needed to talk more towards the end and we need to work on that in our next game.”
Opportunity came knocking again for Harborfields, and Sarah DeVito answered for a 2-0 lead with 11:26 left in the half.
“I’m not going to lie, I was really intimidated when we were told what their record was coming in,” DeVito said. “And all day in school, especially in math class, every couple of questions the numbers zero, three and 27 would pop into my head.”
On a penalty shot, Harborfields Sarah Gray put her team out front 3-0.
“We thought we were on the lower end,” said Gray. “But we were excited to get in the game and show them that we’re here to play.”
The Wildcats had no answer by halftime, but with 16:03 left in regulation, Harborfields went a man down, and Shoreham-Wading River looked to capitalize, but squandered the opportunity.
“They have a lot of skilled players and they’re very fast,” Harborfields Desiderio said. “They have skilled players and they did a good job putting pressure on us. I was pleased with our transition.”
Shoreham-Wading River found the box nine minutes later when Corona’s solo shot took the zero off the scoreboard to close the gap, but the team would come no closer.
With the win Harborfields improves to 2-1 and will see action today, Sept. 14 at Greenport-Southholdat 4:30 p.m. Shoreham-Wading River hits the road the same day to face Miller Place at 5:45 p.m.
“We’re so used to playing on a smooth surface we’re a passing team and that’s much more effective on turf,” Shoreham-Wading River head coach Jenna Stevenson said. “It’s our first loss of the season and we’ll look to see where our weaknesses were in this game and improve — get back on a winning streak.”
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