Coaching changes give P.C. teams new look as winter school sports season gets underway
November 15, 2023 at 11:18 p.m.
More than 300 Port Chester student-athletes competing for places on six different teams turned out for the first official winter sports season practice Tuesday (11/14) at the high school and everything old became new again because it wasn't the same old, same old due to coaching changes.
The winter sports teams are the same: Rams and Lady Rams basketball, bowling, wrestling, Rams swimming and cheerleading.
But the coaching staff has changed so there is a blend of the old and the new, accent on the nouveau.
The changing cast
In basketball, for example, longtime assistant varsity coach Greg Cole, a former high school shooting star, has taken over for the retiring Manny Martinez, his father-in-law, with Manny stepping down after 36 years coaching a variety of sports here as well as at Blind Brook with hoops his major passion.
In swimming, the inspirational Colleen Cahill, a former collegiate swimmer at Fordham/Marymount, will try to breathe new life into a Rams team that was down to just seven participants last year, hopefully rebuilding the boys’ team the same way she did the Lady Rams swim team over the past few years.
In bowling, Jeanine Maiolini, a former collegiate infielder at nationally-ranked softball powerhouse Hofstra who turned around the Lady Rams losing softball culture, is back working with the bowlers after being sidelined by an aching back last year, a time when the team had dwindling numbers and more than its share of ups and downs.
The largest turnouts
In Track & Field, ex-Ram football and T&F standout Nick Mancuso, the reigning dean of all active Port Chester coaches at 22 years and counting, will be back for another go-around as will former Section One Ram light heavyweight wrestling champion Joe Facciola who is out to return the wrestling Rams to their former glory days. Both are now physical education instructors in the Port Chester School District as are Maiolini and Cahill.
But it was Mancuso and Facciola's teams that had the most student-athletes trying out, around 90 for Mancuso's indoor T&F team and a record 80 for Joe Fatch (as Facciola is called) and his wresting team.
And no Port Chester team had more new coaching faces, all former Ram athletes, than Facciola’s wrestling Rams, that number including:
*New junior varsity assistant coach Brayan Mendez, a former wrestling Ram who made All-Section in his senior year and finished his career with 101 wins, went on to wrestle for Springfield College and was a high school senior when Facciola took over as head Ram coach.
*Danny Maldonado, former Ram soccer and football player, is the new modified team wrestling coach after stints as the former Lady Rams assistant soccer coach and current JV Rams soccer coach. He currently teaches physical education at the JFK Elementary School.
*New volunteer wrestling coach Nicky Bolanos, a sophomore at Manhattanville College, who was a four-time All-Section wrestler for the Rams who graduated with more than 100 career wins.
*Ray Matthews, a new volunteer coach who wrestled for Facciola as a Ram and went on to coach wrestling at Greenwich High School under former Rams head coach Greg Domestico before returning to Port Chester.
Hoop dreams, dreamers
In Lady Rams basketball, veteran head coach Danny Davis will be back looking for someone to replace all-time wunderkind Kayleigh Heckel who transferred to Long Island Lutheran (LuHi) last year, starred on the prep school powerhouse team that was ranked as high as number one in the country and just committed to play college ball on the West Coast for the University of Southern California (USC). That won't be easy.
But if you are wondering who Port Chester's breakout star of the upcoming winter sports season will be, that is a relatively easy question to answer: Guillermo (Memo) Zabala, the Dominican Republic transfer who made the All-Conference basketball team last year as one of the leading scorers in Section One and figures to be even better this year as a senior.
So right now there is no telling whether this will be a winter season of discontent or one of the best scholastic sports seasons ever.
But the beauty of sports is you never know what can happen so there may be a lot of hidden winter stars waiting to come out and shine once the season starts for real come December.
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