Prep swim team gets reprieve; fate of Hawk hockey transfers to be decided
A week ago, it looked as if the second-place finish that the St. Peter’s Prep swim team earned at the NJSIAA state sectionals would not be good enough to get the Marauders into the state playoffs.
At first, NJSIAA swimming organizers thought that the Parochial A tournament bracket would only include six teams, which would have excluded the Marauders, even with the fine finish in the state sectionals.
However, upon further review, the organizers realized that both the Marauders and Bergen Catholic (the sectional champion) had received the necessary amount of power points to qualify for the state tournament, meaning the Marauders did earn their first state tournament berth in 12 years.
But as the eighth seed, the Marauders get a first round meeting with Holy Spirit of Absecon, the defending overall state champion, Friday at Atlantic City High School.
Senior Greg Couillou will lead the Marauders into action. Couillou swims the 200 and 500-yard freestyle and is currently less than two seconds off of the Hudson County record, owned by former Prep standout Jeff Enright.
"The kids are excited about going to the state tournament for the first time in quite some time," said Jeff Jotz, the school’s director of public information and the assistant swim coach. "They know that anything can happen."
As long as they received the stay of execution from the state swim’s governor…
The Hudson Catholic hockey team has skated on thin ice all season long and has been nowhere near the team that captured the overall state championship a year ago, evident by the Hawks’ 11-7-1 record.
Well, the team will learn very shortly if the Hawks are about to take another hit, but this one coming off the ice.
The NJSIAA’s eligibility appeals committee will rule if two players, Brad Sorrentino and Anthony Seminara, both of whom transferred to Hudson Catholic from beleaguered Brick Township when it was learned that neither player lived in Brick while playing there, are indeed eligible to play right away for Hudson Catholic.
According to an investigation from Brick Township officials provided in an official report presented to the NJSIAA, Sorrentino appeared to be living in Wall. It cited evidence including the detective’s observations, videotape and photographs. Seminara and his father were renting two rooms in Brick, but he was living in Howell, the report added, citing similar evidence.
Both residences are healthy distances from Jersey City. The students have not played at Hudson Catholic, sitting out the mandatory 30-day transfer waiver period. However, the NJSIAA will rule if the players transferred to Hudson Catholic because of athletic advantage, then the two boys will not be able to play and the entire Hudson Catholic athletic program will receive a gigantic black eye.
Officials such as athletic director Terry Matthews and head coach Cory Robinson have insisted all along that the two boys contacted the school about transferring in from Brick and were not recruited to come. They feel that the school should not receive sanctions because they did not make any attempt to attract the boys to attend the school, other than the simple fact of being the defending NJSIAA overall champion.
Whatever transpires has definitely cast a pall on what has already been a tough and trying season for Robinson and the Hawks…
One final score I witnessed last week absolutely jumped off the sports page. The final score read: Emerson 93, Hoboken 9, in varsity girls’ basketball.
Say what? Ninety-three to nine? Are we serious?
I’m a big fan of Emerson girls’ coach Vinnie Sasso, long from his days as a standout athlete at Secaucus High School and Monmouth University. But Coach Sasso may be a little too young to realize that you don’t beat another team by that ridiculous score, no way, no how.
It was 46-0 at the half. Forty-six to nil. That alone is ludicrous.
But Sasso still had his best players in the game in the second half, because the Bulldogs scored more points in the second half than they did in the first. And that’s even more ridiculous.
There is no room in high school sports for such a lopsided score and there is no excuse for it, especially in a game where there is a clock. Guess what? After a while, you stop scoring. You stop even shooting the ball. You work on passing and dribbling and slowing down the pace. You get your best players off the floor. And you certainly do not humiliate a team that is already struggling along in a winless campaign.
Did anyone forget that there was another team on the floor? What about the girls of Hoboken? Did everyone forget about them and their feelings? What about the good of the game and sportsmanship? All of that apparently was thrown out the window.
I hope that Vinnie Sasso learns from this mistake. It was so totally and brutally wrong. Marist and St. Dominic Academy, two better teams than Emerson, didn’t win by such a wide margin when they faced Hoboken. Those teams and coaches knew when to call off the dogs. In this case, Sasso didn’t know when to call off the Bulldogs.
It’s a shame that such a brilliant basketball campaign, one that features 15 wins, a berth in the county and state playoffs, has to be tarnished by such a heartless and thoughtless act…