Year in Sports in Review

Coach of the Year: Kevin Kelly, Christ the King
BY ZACHARY BRAZILLER
As we embark on a New Year, we look back at how special the 2006-07 high school sports season was the championships and near misses, the great players and their spectacular performances, the joy of victory and agony of defeat. Below are the stories that shaped the athletic year in our borough.
St. Francis Prep’s Mr. No-No
Throwing a no-hitter is hard enough, but how about to cap a record-setting season and clinch a city championship? St. Francis Prep southpaw Dan Forman’s no-hit gem in the city championship, the first in CHSAA Class A intersectional championship game history, was as remarkable as it was rare, a 14-strikeout domination of Regis to claim the Terriers’ first crown since 1995.
“It has to be the best I ever saw,” St. Francis Prep manager Brother Robert Kent, said. It was merely the final chapter to a brilliant senior season for Forman, now at Manhattan. In the semifinals, he threw a one-hitter, struck out seven, and won two other times in the postseason.
Royals Return to Glory
Christ the King has earned a reputation for elite boys hoops, but it had been a while - 12 years to be exact - since they last owned the prestigious Catholic League Class AA city championship crown.
Last March, they returned to glory, ousting bitter rival St. Raymond’s of the Bronx, 57-54, after senior point guard Malik Boothe drained a pair of free throws and forced the Ravens’ Gerald Colds into an off-balance 3-pointer at the buzzer.
The title was their first - and fifth overall - since the Lamar Odom and Speedy Claxton-led Royals won it all. In the interim, four CK squads, including last year’s, had made it to the final but fallen short.
“This trophy is for all the guys who got here,” CK Coach Bob Oliva said at the time.
It was an odd Royals team, led by an undersized backcourt comprised of Boothe and Erving Walker and a unique frontcourt featuring 6-foot-5 forwards Ryan Pearson and Andrew Gabriel. It was also one that finished on top.
Volleyball Season for the Ages at St. John’s
It was only 14 years ago that Joanne Persico-Smith quit her lucrative job with Cablevision as an advertising executive to take over the St. John’s volleyball program. In retrospect, it just seemed like a lot longer. The Red Storm not only repeated as Big East regular-season champions, but also won the postseason tournament for the very first time, and hosted the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament - another first for the Jamaica school. Oh, and they got through those rounds and nearly knocked off No. 5 USC in the regional semifinals, falling short in five games.
There were plenty of individual accolades, too, such as Big East Player of the Year Hui Ping Huang; two-time Libero of the Year Lena Yee; and two more All-Big East first-team selections in outside hitter Latoya Blunt and setter Wioleta Leszczynska, who finished second in the country in assists per game.
“We really had a great experience,” Persico-Smith said after the loss to USC. “It’s disappointing that we didn’t win, but we created great memories.”
Royals Gridders Stage Unpredictable Run to ‘AA’ Finals
After six weeks, they were all but counted out. A month later, they were playing for the league title. It was quite a roller coaster ride for the Christ the King football team. Behind the right arm of senior quarterback Joe Nuss, gutsy play calling of Coach Kevin Kelly and essential contributions by wide receiver Danny Manetta and running back Dave Lopez, the seventh-seeded Royals shocked No. 2 St. Francis Prep and No. 6 Kellenberg in the playoffs in come-from-behind fashion. That the Cinderella story ended in the final to Stepinac was a mere footnote. For a few weeks, football was No. 1 in Middle Village.
More Tennis Glory for Cardozo and St. Francis Prep
Howie Arons was in a rut. Relatively speaking, of course. After winning 15 consecutive PSAL ‘A’ boys tennis titles, he had not won it all since 2003. Cardozo returned to the mountain this past May, beating Brooklyn Tech.
The Judges were led all season by their star singles players, Jai Yoon and Steven Nieman, but the second doubles team of Kevin Chu and Djonvi Santos clinched the Judges’ 19th crown.
Meanwhile, the St. Francis Prep girls tennis team, just continued their awe-inspiring brilliance. Led by No. 1 singles player and North Carolina-bound senior Shinann Featherston, the Terriers won their eighth consecutive Mayor’s Cup title and 10th straight CHSAA state championship. They have now reeled off 141 dual match victories in a row, an unprecedentedstreak that began when Brennan took over.
Championship Basketball comes to Jamaica Estates
For three years, Joe Lewinger championed Casey Shevlin. Her senior year she repaid the debt, leading the Hilltoppers to their second state title under Lewinger, the state Federation Class A crown.
With help from junior Maral Javadifar and sophomore Amanda Burakoski, Mary Louis enjoyed one the best seasons in school history, nearly beating Christ the King in the CHSAA Brooklyn/Queens Diocesan playoffs and taking the Catholic Class A crown from Staten Island power St. Peter’s.
Burakoski was the hotshot youngster and Javadifar the steadying influence, but Shevlin was there whenever her teammates needed her, none more so than against St. Peter’s when she scored 21 points and dished out six assists.
“This was four years of going through the system, waiting for our chance and seizing the opportunity,” Lewinger said.
Thomas Edison, Queens Giants Killers
When discussing the borough’s best basketball team over the last few seasons, the conversation always started and ended this way:
1. Cardozo
2. Campus Magnet.
Thomas Edison put a stop to that. The Inventors, of the lower ‘A’ division, started the borough playoffs with a close win at Bayside. Led by senior center Devin Brown and junior guards Allan Thomas and Stephon Hodges, they followed that up by shocking the Judges at the Oakland Gardens school and capped the thrilling, topsy-turvy week by pulling yet another upset of Campus Magnet.
“We came in with confidence,” Brown said. “We beat Cardozo, so if we beat them we felt we had just as good of a chance against Campus Magnet.”
Track Dominance at Cardozo
Known for the individual accomplishments of star hurdler Lindsay Rowe (now at UCLA) and dynamic middle sprinter Dalilah Muhammad, Cardozo achieved team success this year. They won their first ever indoor city championship, finished second in the outdoor city finals and won their third consecutive Mayor’s Cup crown in the 4×400-meter relay.
Finals Heartbreak on the Pitch
Record-setting seasons for Francis Lewis (boys) and Bayside (girls) soccer teams ended in eerily similar fashion. The Patriots fell to Martin Luther King Jr. in penalty kicks, 5-2, while the Commodores were undone by McKee/Staten Island Tech, 2-0. Each dramatic loss ended in tears, but these setbacks failed to diminish the glorious seasons for each team.
Thanks to sensational sophomore Despina Psomopoulos and seniors Nicole Lee, Alex Knese and Luz Pulgarin, Bayside was the first Queens team to reach the final since Richmond Hill did so in 1986, won their third consecutive Queens A-V division crown and have not lost to a borough opponent since falling to Francis Lewis in May of 2005.
Likewise, the Francis Lewis boys - Sebastian Guenzatti, Mauricio Mora, Frank Lopez, Danny Ospina and Bryant Vargas - won their third consecutive division title and have established themselves as the borough’s best with an undefeated regular league season.