Prep Talk

Check out the bonus edition of Friday's High School Extra, which includes some great information collected by News Sports Reporter Miguel Rodriguez on Friday night's Class B boys soccer title game between Buffalo Public Schools City Honors and Grover Cleveland. 

There is also a ton on Thursday night's playoff action from soccer to volleyball to field hockey from across Western New York.

Speaking of a ton of action:

* Jay Skurski has the story on North Tonawanda and Hamburg winning girls volleyball titles.

* Correspondent Lauren Mariacher covers the Section VI girls gymnastics meet won by Frontier's Nicole Radon.

---Keith McShea

I wrote a story about this season's proliferation of eighth-graders succeeding in girls cross country for today's Scholastic Spotlight.

Here are some additional notes on the eighth-graders as well as notes on all sorts of cross country topics:

Among the top 18 at the 15-team Bemus Point Invitational were more eighth graders (five) than seniors (four).

Caroline Benson of Maple Grove won the race, while two other fellow eighth-graders were teammates … Emma Verdonik (fifth) and Abby Sirwatka (18th). Falconer's Kirsten Holmberg was third and Fredonia's Micaela Tramuta was 11th.

* * *

Kiki Dy is an accomplished swimmer who came to the Newfane program from field hockey, while Sarah Ziemba and twins Kelly and Kate Bocknewetch all excelled in modified track and cross country last year.

Dy "fell into our lap," said Newfane coach Mike Heitzenrater. "Because of the way our league is run in swimming, with the girls competing in the winter, she could never qualify for states. So she said, "I want to do cross country and get to the states.' "

The youngsters have meshed well with senior Bethany Dewey and juniors Erin Hannah and Amy Lanighan.

It may have helped that Newfane had a significant amount of spots to fill in its lineup after graduating much of its team last year.

Continue reading "More from cross country " »