The way Sal Loverde looks at it, the season that begins in mid-November doesn’t really end until June. The indoor track and field season may officially end in March, but for many athletes, the winter is a chance to begin putting in the work that will ultimately pay the biggest dividends at the end of spring. READ
The early part of the winter track season doesn’t present the kind of typical competition that athletes can expect in most sports. There are no head-to-head competitions where an opponent travels to another school. READ
Jackie Zilnicki steps in as the team’s third coach in three years. Graduation has taken away the familiar faces of Faith Johnson-DeSilvia, Kim Ligon and Kate McCarney.
With a fairly clean break from its past, Riverhead High School girls basketball opens a new chapter in its history.
“It is a new beginning,” said Zilnicki, who more than anyone else will write it. READ
Wrestling is a passion for Jake Benedetto. It has been ever since he took up the sport as a youngster. It was a focal point for him as high school wrestler for East Islip and Islip, and then at the collegiate level with SUNY/Oneonta.
Benedetto carried that passion over to coaching. He was an assistant coach for Unatego in upstate New York for one season, coached two seasons at Bayport-Blue Point (one year as the head coach) and then coached the Longwood and Riverhead junior varsity teams.
And now Benedetto finds himself as the successor to Tom Riccio, a National Wrestling Hall of Fame inductee who became Riverhead’s varsity coach in 2015.
“This has been a long journey for me,” said Benedetto, 28. READ
Riverhead is going to need to bring its “A” game this high school boys basketball season, night in and night out.
“Usually that’s just coach talk, but it’s the truth this year,” coach John Rossetti said. “You can’t come out flat. You got to come out ready to play every game.” READ
Shoreham-Wading River overcame a 12-point halftime deficit to defeat Southold Thursday night in the non-league season opener for both teams. (more…)
On a quest for the program’s fourth Long Island championship in the last five years, Shoreham-Wading River fell short Friday night against Cold Spring Harbor, 42-20. The Seahawks won their first LI title since 2005. READ
Black Friday took on a different meaning for the Shoreham-Wading River football team Friday night.
SWR, bidding for what would have been its fourth Long Island Class IV championship, was denied emphatically by a power-running Cold Spring Harbor team. CSH ran over the Wildcats — literally and figuratively — by a 42-20 score for its third Long Island title and first since 2005. READ
