Prep Talk

What I did this summer, part II

During the summer one of the hats I wear is that of an auto racing reporter. I'll be blogging live during today's Camping World Grand Prix at the Glen over at the Sports, Ink. blog.

---Keith McShea

Wayne's most memorable at-bat

Alexis Wayne had 417 at-bats in her five-year high school softball career, but there's one she'll never forget.

The Depew senior, named Western New York's Player of the Year, hit a walkoff home run in the bottom of the ninth to beat rival Lancaster. The score was tied 2-2 when Wayne stepped to the plate.

"I figured I'm a senior, I'm a captain, and I've got to step up," Wayne said. "It was like [tied] 1-1, and I just went after the pitch, and it just happened to go over [the fence] and we won. They're supposed to be the better school, the bigger school. We knew it would be a really big win if we came out on top. We knew we would have to play our best."

Wayne leaves Depew having achieved many milestones. The 46 hits she had a sophomore broke the school record of 43 held by Ellie Hanover since 1993. She batted over .500 in her sophomore and junior years and finished with a career average of .427.

Wayne will attend Niagara University in the fall on a partial athletic scholarship.

Wayne was one of 14 players named to the All-Western New York softball team that appears in today's editions of The Buffalo News.

---Mary Jo Monnin

Hoppy named WNY Player of the Year

The signs kind of point to Kyle Hoppy honoring his commitment to Bucknell and not signing a professional baseball contract with the Baltimore Orioles. The O's drafted the Orchard Park center fielder in the 28th round with the 836th overall pick. It's doubtful the Orioles will give Hoppy the kind of money he'll need to turn away from four years a Bucknell at an annual cost of $48,000.

Hoppy would be taking a huge chance that he could beat the huge odds of having a lengthy big league career. Makes sense except for the fact Hoppy got a taste of the big leagues when he went to Baltimore and worked out for the team prior to the draft at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. There's something about taking BP in a big league park that stays in a young man's head.

"It was awesome, just having 10 scouts there watching you. You got to show off your skills and it was such a great feeling, and I'm glad I got it in because it was raining that day," said Hoppy. "I hit a couple over the fence. I don't know, it was incredible being there. And being in the outfield retrieving balls the other kids were hitting and they had me throwing from the outfield. It just felt like I belonged there."

Hoppy was named the Western New York Player of the Year. Click here for the story and here for a complete list of all-league performers.

---Mary Jo Monnin

Maple Grove among NYSSWA's All-Sport champions

The New York State Sportswriters Association has come up with a great idea -- and some Section VI schools like Maple Grove are getting some all-around recognition because of it.

The NYSSWA today announced its inaugural All-Sport Championships, which measure New York State Public High School Athletic Association schools (that means no Catholic schools) by their across-the-board performances in state championships in all sports (boys and girls).

Maple Grove, which won the state football championship this year and advanced to the final four in boys basketball, shared the top spot in Class D with South Kortright. 

The only other two Section VI schools to make it into the top five were both in Class B: second-place East Aurora was just .33 behind Bronxville (37 points); Fredonia was fourth with 22 points.

Check out the NYSSWA's All-Sport Championships page, where it crowns Burnt Hills (which Sweet Home beat in the Class A football championship game) as its overall winner for amassing the most points. East Aurora's total was the fourth-highest overall.

There are breakdowns by boys and girls. For the boys, Orchard Park tied for first in Class AA, East Aurora was first and Southwestern tied for third in Class B and Maple Grove was first in Class D.

On the girls side, Class B East Aurora was second and Fredonia was fifth. Salamanca was fourth in Class C and Sherman was fifth in Class D.
 
---Keith McShea

Whelan excels at Junior Nationals

Recent Hamburg grad Joe Whelan took second in the 3,000-meter Steeplechase at the USA Junior National Sunday at Hayward Field in Eugene, Ore.

Whelan ran a time of 9:09.97, second to Sean Soderman (Appalachian State) in 9:05.82.

The top two finishers in each Junior National event qualify for the Pan American Junior Games, however those games maybe be canceled (thanks to dyestat.com for the link).  

Here's a link to a post by the Syracuse University -- where Whelan will be competing for the Orange next year.

---Keith McShea

Nichols' Regan verbals to Virginia

Will Regan, the reigning Buffalo News Player of the Year in boys basketball who just completed his junior year at Nichols, has verbally committed to the University of Virginia. That's according to an e-mail that his father sent to me this morning.

A google search showed the ravenous college hoops world had the news last night -- scout.com has it as their lead story right now on its college basketball home page. Here's a Maryland fan site which quoted it. 

Regan will play for new Virginia coach Tony Bennett, who left Washington State for the Cavaliers of the Atlantic Coast Conference in late March.

---Keith McShea

All-WNY boys lacrosse: OP lands four on first team

Plenty of good things happened this lacrosse season to soften the blow of Section VI not
winning a state title.

Consider where some of these players are continuing their careers ...

Everyone knows Jeff Tundo is headed to Ohio State, he committed as a junior, but what about Pierce Abrams of Niagara-Wheatfield ticketed for defending national champion Syracuse? Besides honing his skills in Wheatfield, he was also selected to the under-19 Iroquois National team and has been participating with a select group of players on a Six Nation junior A box lacrosse team in Canada. He accepted the prestigious Haudenosaunee Promise Scholarship to SU.

Clay DelPrince of Frontier is going to Brown where he will receive an Ivy League education.

"I chose Brown because they have a really good mix of academic and athletic programs at a very high caliber," said DelPrince, who plans to study biochemistry. "Obviously in the Ivy League they're one of the best academic institutions and lately they're under a new coach and the lacrosse program has been really good, making the NCAA Tournament this year."

Those players wouldn't be going anywhere without good grades. Ten schools received the state's scholar/athlete award for having a combined 90-plus average: Lockport, Hamburg, Lancaster, Iroquois, Clarence, Frontier, Williamsville North, Sweet Home, Niagara-Wheatfield and Williamsville East.

This year's All-Western New York lacrosse team, chosen by area coaches, contains four players from Orchard Park -- Tundo, Mike Moran, Artie Marrapese and Gary Davies.

---Mary Jo Monnin

A sorry Macker headline: The News goes 0 for 2

The Gus Macker was great fun. Even though we at The News were oh-for-2, two-and-done, doubly eliminated.

The squad that competed in the Friday-only corporate challenge was myself, sales intern and current University at Buffalo student Holly Pryzbysz (a name I hopefully spelled right when she was a standout at Kenmore West) and buffalo.com's Dave Jarka and Ben and Tom Kirst.

The first game pitted us against West Herr Honda, which apparently has very tall people selling cars or working on cars. They had a duo that was just too big for us. We hung in there early on but ended up falling by like 8-1 or something. (The one basket will be the one I'll be telling everyone about, however -- a drive from the left side finished with an up-and-under move and a layup. Booyah.)

We were headed to the loser's bracket, where our opponent would be either Coca-Cola or Athleticare. Coke was leading, and they had a dude in skinny dreads who looked very familiar. Sure enough, it was East High grad (and 2008 All-Western New York first-teamer) Jamal Webb. Luckily for me, there was no chance for Webb to posterize me -- Coke beat Athleticare.

At Athleticare, they take care of people, which apparently means they are very adept at hurting people as well. Hey, we kid because we care -- and because we lost to them. :-)

More big, physical dudes. This was the first game I received an armbar on a drive to the hole. Early on I went baseline and ended up with a contact lens dislodged (but I got some great help from -- no joke -- the trainers' trainer, who hooked me up with some solution).

I haven't gotten my Macker on in about 10 years, but at the end of the game a ref said, "They shouldn't call it the Macker, they should call it the Mauler."

Even Athleticare's female (every team must have one) was about a head-and-a-half on Holly (who gets my vote as our MVP). I think we managed a few more points in this one, but the score was similar to the first. Athleticare ran some pretty give-and-go's late to settle things, and the biggest dude among the big dudes posted me up and played Dwight Howard to my Anderson Varejao.

Despite me knowing every referee in the joint on a first-name basis, our Macker was over.

But it was a great time with some co-workers, a nice chance to see some coaches, officials and players I see in high school gyms all winter -- even if I showed why I write about the hoops instead of play the hoops. I might check out the action of what should be a great hoop festival on Saturday.

As I walked out, I got the ultimate cutdown from Dick Gallagher, the guru of Western New York high school football. He was smiling his devilish smile, the one he usually reserves for trash talking to Yankee fans about how they are living in the decade of the Boston Red Sox.

"We'll call you if we're doing a story," he said, "on how not to play basketball."

I got one thing for Mr. Gallagher and the Macker. In the words of Timmy Lupus, "Just wait til next year!"

---Keith McShea

Warning: Sportswriter attempting to hoop it up

Attention hecklers: this reporter will be in action this evening with The Buffalo News team during the Gus Macker's corporate challenge event downtown.

At 6:20 p.m., we take on West Herr Honda. Guys (and a girl -- every team needs to have one) who sell cars/work on cars vs. guys and a girl who work at a newspaper/Web site. Tough to handicap these matchups. Hopefully the opponents don't have anyone on their roster that we at The News named to an All-Western New York team.

The winner will likely have their hands full -- the other side of our bracket has Coca-Cola (fairly large company there) and Athleticare (oh great, probably former players-turned-trainers). Like the Macker itself, it's double-elimination. Hopefully we're playing for longer than two games (unlike last year's News team, which I can claim no responsibility for).

I'll have a full report on how the ball bounced later on.

I'm hoping to check out some of the action on Saturday -- I'm usually out of town so I haven't been able to get my Macker on in recent years. Certainly a great festival of hoops.

You'll have to excuse me now as I go through my intense pregame routine.

---Keith McShea

Morris takes a step forward

  The All-Western New York boys lacrosse photo was taken on Friday under sunny skies on the turf field at Nichols. It was not a surprise to see John Faller there. Faller may be the Sweet Home lacrosse coach, but he also coaches football. He welcomed the chance to talk a little football, especially about DeShanaro Morris. His All-Western New York linebacker suffered a spinal injury resulting from a car accident in December of 2008. He continues to recover receiving outpatient physical therapy three days a week at ECMC. Faller said Morris can walk an estimated 50-60 steps with a walker.

   "His goal is to eventually walk again," said Faller. "He finished up school this year as a junior and he's still going to ECMC to get his rehab. He'll be there with us this fall to support the team. He's one of the captains. He'll be going out for the coin toss with the other guys. I think with his attitude and desire in sports he understands his situation and he's set his focus on what he's going to be doing for the rest of his life. The first thing is to walk."

--- Mary Jo Monnin