Curtain goes up on new fall scholastic sports season with 8 Port Chester teams and a cast of 400 athletes

September 4, 2024 at 11:14 p.m.
José Antonio Velazquez squares off to get his full weight into the tackling pad during a Rams football tackling drill on Tuesday, Aug. 27 on the Port Chester High School field. The team’s first game will be played on Friday, Sept. 6 at Horace Greeley starting at 6:30 p.m.
José Antonio Velazquez squares off to get his full weight into the tackling pad during a Rams football tackling drill on Tuesday, Aug. 27 on the Port Chester High School field. The team’s first game will be played on Friday, Sept. 6 at Horace Greeley starting at 6:30 p.m. (Joseph DeCarlo/Westmore News)

By MICHAEL IACHETTA | Comments: 0 | Leave a comment
Freelance Reporter

Another opening, another show—it's prime time showtime for scholastic sports locally.

The curtain on the fall season is going up this week with the spotlight on more than 400 student athletes on eight Port Chester teams—football, boys’ and girls’ soccer, girls' swimming and tennis, cross-country, and boys' and girls' volleyball—the boys' VB team making its varsity debut in response to popular demand.


And while it isn't Broadway, the season is guaranteed to have its share of thrills, spills and chills with its changing cast of stars, role players and understudies with unknowns seemingly coming out of nowhere and behind-the-scenes dramas waiting to emerge front and center.

Rush to readiness

The various scenes have already started to unfold in different ways and times across the Port Chester campus.

And all this is going on without any time for out-of-town tryouts, previews or extensive rehearsals.

Ready or not after the first official Section 1 practice began on a recent Monday (8/26), the Rams and Lady Rams underwent their final dress rehearsals for games that started earlier this week (Rams soccer and boys' VB Wednesday (9/4), after press time) with the majority getting underway Friday (9/6).

    Lucas DeMeglio follows the football all the way into his arms in a passing drill during practice on the Port Chester High School field on Tuesday, Aug. 27.
 By Joseph DeCarlo 
 
 

That didn't give the casts much time to practice for opening nights or days, as the case may be.

The grid kickoff

Over on the football field, the offense was running repetitive plays wide right and left in the shadow of the goal post on one side of the gridiron, the defense doing the same thing on the other. So at various times, there was Jefferson Velasquez sprinting down the sidelines with a football tucked under his arms, José Antonio Velasquez slamming into a tackling pad, Lucas DeMeglio and Xavier Tapia cradling passes from Alexis Morel and Louis Granados practicing his field goal and extra point kicks.


Early on, the Rams were looking good, especially the one-two punch of Morel at quarterback and John Pauletti at fullback, wide receivers Jeremy Noel, Scott Sullivan and Tapia and lineman Alber (The Hulk) Pujol and A.J. Alvarez. And there were already dramatic overtones—one potential star was heartbroken because he wasn't in the running for captain and was being consoled by his teammates after practice while another was looking for his helmet that had mysteriously disappeared. But somehow everything will hopefully come together by game time Friday (9/6) away against Greeley at 6:30 p.m.

Soccering it to them

    Junior Andrew Abraham (left), senior Gabriel Franco and junior Jean Carlo Gonzalez take their turn doing a walking overhead drill during boys’ volleyball practice in the Port Chester High School gym last week. They are members of PCHS’s first boys’ varsity volleyball team, making its debut this year.
 By Joseph DeCarlo 
 
 

Over at Rams soccer practice, veteran coach John Cafaldo put his varsity candidates through an opening practice designed to see who was in shape. It began with a half-mile run followed by calisthenics featuring twists, turns and high kicks, followed by another half-mile run, more calisthenics and then wind sprints more like suicide drills—full speed for five yards, turn back to the starting mark, spin and race down the track for about 50 yards. The running drills were designed to simulate the stops and goes of a soccer match on the pitch. And all that took place before the players ever started to kick the ball around the field. Cafaldo, famous for his well-conditioned teams going deep into the playoffs, missed nothing. Including the player puking his guts out under that huge tree outside the gym.


Cafaldo pulls no punches. His soccer team has by far the most student athletes trying out (91). But he has lost 17 seniors to graduation—including such All-Stars as Ramaul Morgan, Nick Tellez, Christian Antunez, Jonathan Bautista and Julian Lopez.

The proven players

"There are only a handful of seniors out for the team, so we will be looking to see who from the younger players can step up and enhance our team," Cafaldo said. From the outset he will be counting on his proven players to set the tone—senior center midfielder David Dolores, senior forwards Bertrand Arana-Moreau and Alexander Villa and junior center midfielder Emmanuel Garcia.

    Senior Nataly Suertegaray, an outside hitter on the Lady Rams volleyball team, passes the ball during a warm-up before practice last week in the Port Chester High School gym.
 By Joseph DeCarlo 
 
 

They were among the first Port Chester teams to get off and running—they opened their season Wednesday (after press time) against New Rochelle with their first home game scheduled for Monday (9/9) against Roy C. Ketcham at 4:30 p.m.

Lady Rams head soccer coach Danny Alvarado was in almost the same boat as Cafaldo with just a few seniors like captains Gioella Pastena and Bridget Morocho being counted on to set the tone for the 61 girls registered for both the varsity and JV. The girls opened their season with a first scrimmage against Peekskill Wednesday (after press time) and their season home opener Thursday (9/5 after press time) against Spring Valley at 4:30 p.m. And their next game is Monday (9/9) away against Mount Vernon at 4:30 p.m.

Vballers on the rise

Over in the gym, second-year Lady Rams volleyball coach Stephanie Costabile had a solid returning nucleus in seniors Nataly Suertegaray, Camila Nunez, Ava Ramos and Karah Provenzano, juniors Emily Garcia and Skylar Sams and freshman Julianna Luzzi. But the school's first ever boys' VB team and their coach Jhonattan Cortez will be starting from scratch.


Cortez, a Greenwich entrepreneur, fell in love with the game during his Army infantry days at Fort Benning, Ga., coached U-age group VB teams at the King Street Elementary School and the Carver Center in Port Chester as well as at the Kratos Volleyball Academy in Stamford, Conn., and has five kids, three of whom are Vballers while his wife also coaches the sport.


"What can I say, my life is volleyball," Cortez, an ex-high school soccer player, said shortly after he put his Rams through an 8 a.m. VB practice in the gym on Labor Day. "I've coached a lot of Port Chester High School VB players on U teams, and when they asked me to help them get a team started here at the high school, we got the ball rolling with the petitions showing the interest in starting the sport. And the Port Chester Athletic Director James Ryan listened. He called me July 1 saying VB could be a varsity sport for the boys, I got the necessary certifications by July 15, and here we are."

History in the making

Cortez’s team revolves around seniors Richard Jimenez, Gabriel Franco, Felix Perez, Chris Wolff and Chris Yupangui, juniors Jake Vasquez, Andrew Abraham and Jonathan Tenesaca, sophomore Sebastiano Anzovino and freshmen Jean Carlo Gonzalez and Rodrigo Pinzon.

"I keep telling the boys we are a history-making legacy team, a Port Chester first, and we have to work extra hard to represent the school, the community and Port Chester," Cortez said. "And we will. And are."

    Juniors Chris Evan, Camila Ramos, Katheryn Espiniza, Ethan Cabrera and Santiago Marquez, all members of the Port Chester High School cross-country team, run along the path at Crawford Park during practice last Friday, Aug. 30 at Crawford Park.
 By Joseph DeCarlo 
 
 

Athletic Director James Ryan explained that the new Ram Vballers "will be playing many of the new teams to the sport that we could potentially be competitive with," those teams including New Rochelle, Somers, Brewster, Ossining and Harrison.

The VB Rams will get their chance to show what they can do soon enough because they open their season with an away game Friday (9/6) away against New Rochelle at 4:30 p.m. The Lady Ram VBallers open the same day, same time, away against Mamaroneck.

From pool to park

And so it goes up and down the line with the Rams and Lady Rams going through their paces on playing fields extending from the high school to the Carver Center pool to the hills of Crawford Park.

At the Carver Center, Lady Rams swim coach Colleen Cahill said she is looking for big things from freshman Adriana Martinez who has raced competitively for the Rye YMCA Wave Ryeders, but it is too soon to tell who else will step up to replace her key graduated seniors Nicole Ortega in the butterfly, backstroker Jaina Gonzalez and breaststroker/intermediate swimmer Melody Sapione.


"I feel confident we will be able to train and work with our new swimmers and perform just as well if not better than we have in the past," said Cahill, who is getting her team ready for their first meet next Wednesday (9/11) against Pearl River at 4:30 p.m. at the Carver Center pool.

At Crawford Park, head cross-country coach Cindy Reyes Martinez, a Port Chester School District language teacher who still holds the school record for the girls' mile at 5 minutes flat, said that her top returning runners include Santiago Marquez and Alexa Aguiriano, with both having a shot at making the All-League Team (with Marquez potentially All-County) if they can stay injury free.

Promising newcomers 

"Newcomers showing great promise include junior Ethan Cabrera and sophomore Antony Delgado," Martinez said. "And I'm very excited to have freshmen Jean Carlos Contreras, Andy Jimenez, Sebastian Oliveras and Saeed Sarraj out for the team because they all ran track for me at the Middle School and show great potential."

The cross-country team will get off to the races for the first time this year Tuesday (9/10) at 4:30 p.m. at Croton Point Park in a mega-dual meet against Fox Lane, Horace Greeley, White Plains, Yonkers and Ossining. The freshmen will run 1.5 miles, the varsity 3.1 miles.


"My main goal during the beginning of our season is to build those miles through long distance running so everyone who is not a freshman can finish the longer 5K race," Martinez said. "Most of our team is inexperienced, so learning different and what a mile pace workout vs a 5K pace workout looks like is crucial. We are also focusing on form as well as our breathing...I am so proud of everyone so far because every single runner, regardless of their talent, always goes above and beyond."

So there it is, another opening, another show, lots of them actually, some running longer than others, with the reviews not yet in on the hits and misses. But one thing is certain, if you play it, they will come, the hits as well as the misses, that is, but hopefully there will be more Ls than Ws for the Rams and Lady Rams. And whatever happens, that's show business.


Comments:

You must login to comment.