Winter Sports Previews
Girls Basketball
Coaches: Ms. Cerone, Miss Shaw, and Miss Luderer
Expectations: To have competitive games and maintain a continuous hustle and drive.
Star athlete returning: Shahed Zubi, 4-year starter who will be going for her 1,000th career point
Other noteworthy athletes: Natalie Aguilar (Sr)- aggressive, Amira Najmeddin (Sr)- tough, Emely Orbea (Jr)- shooter, Maya Winters (Fr)- playmaker, and Sayedah Najmeddin (Jr) - a hard worker
Goals: Day-to-day improvements; consistency; having fun and working hard
Methods: Focus on fundamentals and skill development
Boys Basketball
Coaches: Coach Jano, Coach Scarzafava, Coach Koonce
Captains: Justin Chevalier, Arzeq Ali
Expectations for the season: We have 4 returning players so we are relying on those players to bring their experience and leadership to help lead up towards being competitive and successful this year.
Star Athletes Returning: Justin Chevalier leads the team at point guard and is our main distributor and leader at running the offense as well as bringing his intensity on the defensive side. Arzeq Ali is our outside scoring threat from beyond the three and lead the team last year with over 40 three pointers made.
Goals for the season: To be a competitive team that plays with maximum effort and focus on the court at all times.
Wrestling
Coaches: Coach Cabrera, Coach Egloff, Coach Monteforte, Coach O’Hanlon, Coach Sutera, Coach Ventura
We are REBUILDING this season. The departure of 2018 District Champion, Austin Hufnagle, hurts. The challenge for the staff is to accelerate the development of our solid returning core wrestlers and bring along the talented rookies quickly.
Core wrestlers: 1st Team All-BNA Armani Nunes—2nd Team All-BNA Jacob Leiva, Hon. Mention All-BNA Jineer Contreras, Freshman County Finalist Sean Firat, Brandon DeOliveira, and Carlos Peralta.
Captain: Jacob Leiva--impeccable character, reliable, trustworthy, honest, “OLD-SCHOOL”
Co-Captains: Jineer Contreras--epitomizes the student-athlete/ Sean Firat--hard worker, reliable, loves the sport/ Brandon DeOliveira--in the wrestling-room: he leads by example.
Expectations for the Season: I want our wrestlers to COMPETE & IMPROVE every time they step on A mat!! If we can accomplish this feat, we will return a very formidable wrestling squad for years to come.
Look out for these players! Sr. Fernando Muro, and rookies K. Berberian, K. Chica, M. Hernandez, S. O’Hare, G. Olmedo, A. Rivera, K. Quevedo, & O. Zelaya
Goals for the season: Develop future champions and get Paola Valdez down to New Jersey’s, first ever, girls state wrestling tournament.
Methods: Basic hard & demanding wrestling workouts. They’re arduous but so worth it!
Girls and Boys Bowling
Coach: Miss Woodley
Captains: Arelis Rodriguez/Luis Prado
Expectations for the season: The girls have a strong base with two returning seniors, while the boys are working to hit a milestone every time we go to the lanes.
Star athletes returning: Karina Hidalgo, Mike Rivera, Anthony Major are all stars who are returning this year.
Goals for the season: Our goal is to focus on small improvements each time we enter the lanes by setting goals and striving to implement the skills needed to reach them. Freshman Aavinaash Rampersad and Caitlyn Cucchia have joined the ranks this year and come to the team with prior experience and a good attitude - we expect good things from both of them!
Methods being practiced: As there are a number of new students on the team, we are working hard on the basics of body movement and physical adjustments to attain consistency.
Competition Cheer
Coach: Ms. Schmitt and Ms. Mangiacapra
Captains: With SEVEN returning seniors, they all lead as one!
Expectations for the season: We expect to be competitive in our new division, we have some tough teams that we've never competed against before, but we are up to the challenge.
Star athletes returning: Every athlete on this team is returning from last year's varsity team. Over the off-season they all have been working hard, attending tumbling classes and improving their skills. Each one of them have improved tremendously since last season and we're all excited for our first competition.
Goals for the season: To improve each week, increasing our difficulty level.
Methods being practiced: We have been working on different sections of our routine. We start each practice with our jump sequence and then move on to partner stunts and pyramids.
Winter Track
Coaches: Ms. Reggo, Ms. Woyce and Ms. Johnston
Captains: We don’t really have captains, we have team leaders. I don’t pick anyone, but rather a few athletes on their own have taken leadership responsibilities.
Expectations for the season: The league is new this year. For the boys I expect to beat the teams we should and have beat. I expect our girls to compete for a league championship.
Star athletes returning:
Girls: Sophomores Kelsey Pereira (distance) Samantha Arcila (middle distance). Juniors Veronica Calderon and Buket Kayabas (distance). Seniors Destiny Cameron (throws) Izabella Hasandjekic (sprints, hurdles)
Boys: Sophomores Lukkas Londono (sprints, jumps) new sophomore Daniel Roman (sprints, jumps). Junior Christian Orizabal (distance). Senior Ivan Hilario (sprints, hurdles)
Goals for the season: I expect them to show up everyday and work as hard as they can. If they work hard, good things will happen. I expect them to improve over the course of the season.
Methods being practiced: Work work work. Everyday we have a plan and what we do in practice has an overall goal. We push our athletes to get them best out of them. Motivating runners especially in the cold winter months can be tough. We try to make our kids see the bigger picture of getting better everyday. They understand that each day they put in makes them better than they were the day before.