Trojans have a strong winter season
across the board
Garden City High School is blessed to have one of the stronger student–athlete populations on Long Island. Regardless of the sports season, the teams, coaches and players compete hard on both the field and in the classroom. On the academic side this is no more evident each year then when the list of scholar athletes is presented and the universities that they will be attending are announced. For some sports the verbal commitments are made in junior year (lacrosse), but in many it is the spring of their senior year. Typically you will see schools like Harvard, Georgetown, Boston College and Notre Dame on that list – schools where even the best athletes need to also excel in the classroom.
This winter session was no different for the Trojans as they had several outstanding performances, great team results and four County Championships.
The boys swim team had an undefeated season for coach Anne Sullivan and capped it with their first County Championship since 1999 at the Nassau swimming championships. Led by MVP Joe Lozano winning the 100-yard breaststroke and 200-yard IM in school record times, and then coming back to win as part of the 200 (another school record) and 400-yard freestyle relays. With Lozano in the 200 were Matthew Finnegan, Connor Brown and Frank Caponegro, while Finnegan, Brown and Daniel Finnegan joined him in the 400.
The girls basketball team exceeded even their top fans expectations by capturing the Nassau County Championship with a victory over Floral Park in the finals at CW Post. The young team was led by County MVP Sam Auricchio (sophomore) and County Tournament MVP Taylor Carpentier (junior). The team also had stellar performances from junior Tara DeAngelo, freshman Kerry McCarraher and sophomore Becky Riefler throughout the season. Although they had terrific basketball seasons, Carpentier is headed to George Mason and DeAngelo to Villanova University, both to play lacrosse.
On the boys side, the team didn’t fare as well as they barely missed out on the playoffs although seniors Spencer Bais, Ed Blatz, Dan Bonchonsky, Andrew Granville and Kyle Skramko kept the team in every game with both a strong inside game and some timely outside shooting. Blatz and Skramko are both committed to play lacrosse in college at Georgetown and St. John’s respectively.
One of the top performers of the winter session was girls track star Emma Gallagher who helped lead the team to a seventh consecutive County title, as well as grabbing two State titles along the way. Emma won her second consecutive 600-meter race and anchored a repeat NYS championship performance in the 4×400-relay, these are on top of her Nation leading 600 meter time of 1:30.35! Running with Emma on the champion relay team were Kelly Lawson, Katie O’Neill and Laura Jaeger. Also coming away from the NY State meet with a title was Jen Gerland who was a member of the Section VIII relay team.
Another standout performer in track was Andrew Morra. He proved to be one of the best middle distance runner’s on Long Island with several stellar performances including a fifth place finish in the 1000 meters at States and a first place performance at the conference meet in the 600. Morra has signed a letter of intent to attend Lafayette College. Tim Josephs also had several outstanding runs that were highlighted by a first place finish in the 3,200 meters at the Conference championships.
The girls fencing team delivered a County Championship for Garden City this season as they capitalized on a late season run through Nassau County. Top fencers on the team throughout the season were Julia Cupolo, Emily Fallon and Katherine Tomasi. The girls had entered the playoffs as the number 3 seed as they had a somewhat up and down season but pulled together for the Championship.
Garden City also had an excellent season at the lanes as both the boys and the girls bowling teams had better than .500 records. Throughout the season for the girls it was Jeanette Oellrich, Allison Miller and Brooke Schlatter rolling high games and strong series to lead the team. On the boys side it was Dan Combatti and Thomas and Joey Rocco leading the way while dropping the most pins for the Trojans.
The boys fencing team, as well as the wrestling team were two squads that were focused on rebuilding this season and will look to come back next winter for runs at county championships.
