Red, Black & Gold Scoreboard: October 25

Sachem East Boys Soccer: Sachem 3, Brentwood 2 ... Kyle Jenkins scored the game winning goal for Sachem with 15 minutes left in the contest to beat rival Brentwood on Tuesday. Sachem East is now 12-0-1 in League I play. Also scoring for Sachem was Demetrios Tsiokas, who netted two goals. Sachem clinched a League I title with the win. Will Silber made eight saves in the victory.

Sachem North Boys Cross Country: The Sachem North boys cross country team competed at the Suffolk County Division Championship meet at Sunken Meadow State Park. The team was led by Colin Eberhardt's 10th place overall finish in a time of 16:57 for the 5k course.

Sachem East Boys Cross Country: This past Tuesday the Sachem East boys cross country team competed in the Suffolk County championships at Sunken Meadow State Park. The team placed seventh in the Championship Division which included the top 24 teams in the county. The Arrows were led by an outstanding effort from Ryan Scarpelli who finished fifth in an outstanding time of 16:42 over the 5K course. By his finish Scarpelli earned All County Honors.  Finishing next for Sachem East was Tom Rascona in 20th place and Zach Patsy in 27th place. These finishes also allowed these two young men to earn All County honors as well. The teams next race is the Frosh/Soph Meet at Sunken Meadow this Saturday.  An outstanding group of young Sachem harriers will test their skills against the best young runners from many other best teams in Suffolk. The team’s final meet is on November 4 at the State Qualifying Meet which will also be at Sunken Meadow. The team is looking forward to closing out their season by running their best times of the year at this meet.

Sachem East Girls Cross Country: All season long the success of the Sachem East girls cross country team has been dependent on two things: first, the front running leadership of Rachel Paul, and second, the powerful 2,3,4 interchangeable pack of Shannon O'Hehir, Danielle Vasquez, and Melanie Notarstefano. With Notarstefano dealing with a nagging minor injury, and the State Qualifier meet just 10 days away, Coaches Jaimie Sison, Pete McNeill, and Dan Schaub made the tough call to pull her out of the lineup. The team's fate would now rest in what has recently been developing into a third strength - team depth.

As usual, Paul came through, winning her first Individual Division Cross Country title with an outstanding 18:42 on the Sunken Meadow 5K (3.1 mile) course. O'Hehir followed in 10th in 19:52 and Vasquez placed 15th in 20:18. Kaitlin DeMartino answered her teams call finishing 36th in 21:13, closely followed by a constantly improving Nicole Silvestre, 38th in 21:17. Final scores of the top three teams: Ward Melville, first with 68 points, Sachem East, second with 98 points, and Northport, third totaling 120. Providing strong backup for Sachem East were Jada Allen, Sam Maurice, and Katie Hempfling.On November 4, the East girls will again be facing Ward Melville and Northport (and 20 other qualifiers) at Sunken Meadow to determine Suffolk County's Class "A" representative at the New York State Chamoionship. Race time is 2:50 pm.

Kaitlin DeMartino, who normally finishes as the fifth runner, had to slide up to fourth runner and someone else took her place and finished the team scoring. With Suffolk County's top 20 schools in this championship race, the East girls (ranked No. 7 in NYS) was severely tested, particularly by Ward Melville (No. 8 NYS), and Northport (No. 10 NYS).

Sachem North Girls Cross Country: Sophomore Katie Michta’s time of 20:57 led all Sachem North finishers at the Division Championship and earned her a spot on the All-County team where she will join All-County teammate Kelly Lavan at the Suffolk Coaches Association All-County dinner in November. Katie continued the outstanding racing she has shown all season as she took advantage of great weather and very good course conditions to run a career-best time at Sunken Meadow State Park’s 5K course.

Sachem’s team score was hurt as junior co-Captain Kelly Lavan was a DNF in the race.  Kelly had to pull out of the race due to breathing problems near the two mile mark. While Kelly had a good race position through the mid-point of the race, this was not going to be her day.  The rest of the Championship Race squad ensured that Sachem would still run its strongest team average at Sunken Meadow for the season, exceeding its team average at Suffolk Coaches by fourteen seconds.  Dowon Hwang, Marysa Mullen (with identical times), Becca Duffy, Oriana Howell (a meet day replacement for injured Jenn Weiss) and Mackenzie Coleman rounded out the strong Championship Race squad.  All had season or career-best Sunken Meadow 5K times.

Sophomore rookie Patricia Romano moved up throughout her race to have a season-best day as she led North Arrows finishers in the Individual Qualifier race.  Patricia had the seventh fastest time of the day for Sachem and, in her first season in cross country (she did not run XC in Middle School), showed race savvy as she had her finest race day in what promises to be an exciting career.  Aprilrose Marasco, Erin Schreck, Monica Abrams and Heather Monaghan rounded out the top five finishers in the race.

Today was a microcosm of the season for Sachem’s XC team as the team saw many outstanding performances.  There was, as is inevitable in athletics, some pain as we had DNFs and several injuries that kept some athletes out of today’s meet.  We saw a remarkable race in freshman Brigid Rattiger who was added to the meet line-up yesterday as she recovered from a hip injury to get in key workouts in the days leading up to the meet.  But most of all, the North Arrows showed the character, heart and spirit today that they have demonstrated all season that makes this a season to remember.

Sachem North Boys Soccer: Floyd 3, Sachem 2