High School Wrestling Blog

BY CHRIS MASCARO

My apologies for the rankings that came out with my Wrestling Insider today. I handed those rankings in before all of the post-Christmas tournaments with the intentions of sending in revised ones today.

They went up before I could do that (I am working on updating them online as well), but for now, I will post them on my blog. So here is the top-10 in Division I (the D2 rankings online are correct):

1. Brentwood (no brainer after taking the L.I. Challenge)
2. Hauppauge (won a tough Massapequa Tournament, and as I've said before, the top-3 are extremely tight, so MacArthur could easily change positions with them)
3. MacArthur (very nice showing by the Generals against Brentwood, coming down to the final match)
4. Longwood (went upstate and blitzed the competition at the Cicero-North Syracuse Duals)
5. Huntington
6. Massapequa
7. West Islip
8. Sayville
9. Plainedge
10. Islip

A happy and safe New Year to all!

UPDATE: The rankings accompanying the Insider are corrected now online. Sorry for any confusion.

BY CHRIS MASCARO

Quick update from Massapequa....Hauppauge, as expected, won the Massapequa Tournament yesterday afternoon. I'll be back tomorrow morning with analysis.

Here are the results.

**UPDATE: Another tournament where the results just came in were from West Islip, where the host Lions won their tournament by 75.5 points over East Meadow.

BY CHRIS MASCARO

Brentwood defeated MacArthur, 25-21, on senior Jahsua Marsh's pin at 215 pounds to win the Long Island Challenge this afternoon at Islip. Here are the results from the match:

Brentwood 25, MacArthur 21
103: Grant (M) d. H. Garcia (B), 3-0
112: Murray (B) d. Kempf (M), 10-7
119: A. Gomez (B) d. Guerro (M), 9-5
125: R. Gomez (B) d. Seda (M), 9-1
130: Cardoza (B) d. Cataldo (M), 6-2
135: Herold (M) d. T. Calderon (B), 5-2
140: Dunne (M) p. Larkin (B), 5:25
145: Mulholland (M) d. Williams (B), 12-11
152: Piperno (M) d. Cabrera (B), 5-1
160: Hernandez (B) d. Giametta (M), 4-1
171: Mendez (B) d. Macaluso (M), 11-6
189: Daly (M) d. Manzueta (B), 3-1
215: Marsh (B) p. Barnes (M), 1:34

A full story of the final will be in tomorrow's paper.

***UPDATE: I'm back to give you a little rundown on the L.I. Challenge. Okay, so just to recap yesterday's results: Pool A consisted of MacArthur, Islip, Farmingdale and Miller Place. MacArthur finished 3-0, Islip 2-1 (losing, obviously, to MacArthur), Farmingdale was 1-2, and Miller Place was 0-3. In Pool B, Brentwood was 3-0, Sayville was 2-1, Plainedge 1-2, and MacArthur "B" 0-3.

So the matchup for third place should have been Islip-Sayville. But because those teams are in the same league, they chose not to wrestle and instead flipped with the fifth-place match. So we got a Sayville-Famingdale match (which Sayville won 35-27) followed by an Islip-Plainedge battle (which, interestingly, Plainedge won 31-30...more on this later).

Sayville comes out of the tournament looking tough, with a win over a Plainedge team that was widely believed to be the best team in Nassau.

"Plainedge was a very big win for us," Sayville coach Gary Pesko told me.

About facing Islip, he said: "We figured we'd save them for the league season." The teams will meet on January 30 at Islip.

As far as the top teams, MacArthur and Brentwood—you can essentially throw them in a pot with Hauppauge, mix them together, and get the same team. I can't see much of a difference right now between any of them. After I see how Hauppauge did at the Massapequa Tournament, I will rank them somehow in the top-3. So look out for that on Monday.

Also, on the topic of Plainedge. I said yesterday that we ranked them too high at No. 3, but that they should still be in the top-10. After seeing them against Islip, I agree with that statement. And if Plainedge is (hypothetically) the eighth-best team, then Islip is 8a. Essentially the match came down to a one-point match at 189, where Islip's coaches were screaming at the ref that the Plainedge wrestler was stalling.

Whether it was or not, the teams are very close in talent.

I also got to watch Carl Korpi of Miller Place for the first time today. Though he was wrestling a far inferior opponent (who he teched), you could tell that Korpi's best attribute is his quickness for such a big kid. His shots are very crisp and he's strong enough to finish them.

Then I watched Jahsua Marsh, Brentwood's 215 pounder. He too wrestled a far inferior opponent (who he pinned in the first period). When I went over to talk to Marsh, you could see that the kid is built like an Adonis. Korpi and Marsh are ranked 1 and 2, respectively, in Suffolk right now because Korpi beat Marsh, 4-3, in the Gray-Fitzgerald Sayville Tournament. If they meet again in the county final, it's going to be a spectacular match.

Just to get back to Plainedge quickly. One of the key matches in Sayville's "upset" win was Jesse Sgaglione's 12-8 loss to Josef Haas at 125 pounds. Haas is by no means a bad wrestler, but he did get pinned three times in the Disney Duals last week.

Right now longislandwrestling.com has Sgaglione ranked third at 125 behind Wantagh's Paul Liguori (a two-time state champion) and Bellmore-JFK's Zach Cogen, who Liguori beat 4-2 in the 119 Nassau final last season. If Sgaglione can't get more consistent results, he'll be no match for either one of them come tournament time.

Back to Haas: In addition to losing four times in Disney (three by pin), he had three pins himself. He also wrestled Sachem East's Dan O'Malley pretty tough. O'Malley is ranked third in the county at 119. So, like his team, Haas is fickle. If Sayville (and Haas) can wrestle to its potential, it can continue to knock off teams like Plainedge. If not, Sayville could finish third in League V behind Huntington and Islip.

In other news, Longwood won all 10 of its matches at the Cicero-North Syracuse Duals over the weekend, including a 36-34 win over Valley Central (Section IX), which finished sixth in the state last season. Right now, the Lions are just behind Brentwood and Hauppauge in Suffolk.

I'll be back tomorrow with some recaps and analysis from the Massapequa and West Islip Tournaments, so be on the lookout. See you out there.

BY CHRIS MASCARO

What a fantastic day of wrestling today. A tournament comes down to the final match (which verrryy rarely happens), the Long Island Challenge lived up to its billing as the best high school wrestling event of the year, we saw one of the best matchups of the season so far at the Sachem North Tournament, and much, much more.

Okay, let's start in Glen Cove, where North Shore's Joe Denouvellis pinned Glen Cove's Lewis Linares in 59 seconds in the 285-pound final to give North Shore a two-point advantage in the final team score.

Some other highlights of the tourney include a pair of Garden City wrestlers. Spencer DeSena earned a first-period pin in the 215-pound final, while teammate Joe Barbato stuck his man in the 96-pound final. GC's Nick Preziosi lost in the 145 final, 7-3, to New Rochelle's Tom Antonioli, who was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Wrestler.

Okay, let's move on to the first day of the Long Island Challenge. Pool A (Brentwood, MacArthur "B," Sayville, Plainedge) was at MacArthur, while Pool B (Islip, Miller Place, Farmingdale, MacArthur) was at Islip. It'll be Brentwood against MacArthur in tomorrow's final at Islip at 12:30 p.m.

Brentwood cruised in its three matches today. Here are the team's results:
Brentwood 68, MacArthur "B" 3
Brentwood 49, Sayville 13
Brentwood 47, Plainedge 16

What's interesting is that Sayville bumped off Plainedge (who I had ranked third on Long Island in my preview), 36-22. A couple of conclusions about this, A) yes, Brentwood is that much better than all of the teams on L.I. save Hauppauge, B) Plainedge was ranked a little too high. Not 10 spots too high, but maybe four. We'll see how to sort things out after tomorrow's matches. I'll be there for the final, and I'll try to get a blog in with results from the morning.

Here's how MacArthur got to tomorrow's final:
MacArthur 44, Farmingdale 21
MacArthur 36, Miller Place 20
MacArthur 33, Islip 18

I can't see MacArthur beating Brentwood (or really coming close for that matter), but what a great win over Islip. When I put out a new set of rankings next week, I know that MacArthur will be at least fourth behind Brentwood, Hauppauge, and possibly Longwood depending on how they did at the Cicero-North Syracuse Tournament, which ended today.

Sayville definitely warrants a spot in the top-10 with its performance. Glenn won the Ward Melville Tournament , but as I've stated before, I need to see a little bit more from them before they crack into the top-10. Ward Melville is a pretty good club, but beyond that, there wasn't much talent in the seven-team field. Stay tuned with them.

Also, watch out for Miller Place. They aren't even close to being well-rounded enough to be in the conversation for the top-10, but their big guys can compete with anyone, led by Carl Korpi at 215. Check out what he's done so far this year, and how many coaches have already decided to duck him.

Now, let's talk about the match of the day...maybe the match of the season. At the Sachem North Tournament, Shoreham-Wading River's Steven Keith took on Bayport-Blue Point's Glenn Donatelli in the 112-pound final. Keith won the state title at 96 pounds last season, while Donatelli was fourth at 103.

It was a very tight match, but in the end Keith earned a 4-1 victory. The match was scoreless after the first period, but Keith got two near-fall points in the second on a tilt. Donatelli (who chose to be on bottom at the beginning of the period) eventually escaped to make it 2-1 going into the final period. Keith took neutral, and made the decision pay off by taking Donatelli down to seal the victory.

Said SWR coach Joe Condon: "I think it's going to help his confidence. It's a quality win over a top opponent. Steven was on the offensive the entire match."

The greatest thing about this match—it's scheduled to happen again on January 9.

From sectionxi.org: 1/9/2008 4:30 PM Shoreham WR @ Bayport-Blue Point

Stay tuned.

Also from Sachem North (where no team scores were kept, but East Islip led the way with four champions, while Deer park had three champs and two runner-ups), was yet another SWR-BBP final at 145 pounds, as T.J. Neidhart (SWR) defeated Kevin Edward, 7-0. Another pretty good matchup that should take place again in the coming weeks.

Yet, I can't see either of the BBP guys getting revenge the next time around.

Elsewhere: Uniondale won a pair of matches at its dual-meet tournament, West Babylon won the Half Hollow Hills East Tournament and Bellmore-JFK's Zach Cogan was named MOW, and Rocky Point won the Mid-Hudson Tournament in a tough, 19-team field behind strong efforts from Matt Ross (96 pound champ) Brandon Escobar (112 champ), Anthony Volpe (135 champ who earned his 100th career win in the final), Jerry Ceccio (140 champ) and Billy Coggins (145 champ). Baldwin's Vinny Pecora also was crowned a champion, at 103 pounds. He and Ross were named the Most Outstanding Junior and Freshman at the event, respectively.

Rocky Point is one of the teams alongside Glenn on the cusp of breaking into the top-10. So make sure to watch out for the Eagles.

As for tomorrow, we've got three huge events on tap: the second day of the L.I. Challenge, the finals of the West Islip Tournament (featuring the host Lions, East Meadow, Harborfields and more), and the Massapequa Tournament (featuring Hauppauge, the host Chiefs, Monroe-Woodbury of Section IX, Wantagh and more).

I'll try to post a blog about each one throughout the day tomorrow (or at the latest Sunday morning), so be on the lookout.

See you out there.

BY CHRIS MASCARO

Welcome back from the Holiday hiatus. High school wrestling took four days off for Christmas, but now it's time to get back in the saddle.

Some of the events today include the Uniondale Duals and the Half Hollow Hills East and Sachem North Tournaments. All three are two-day events.

Also Longwood is upstate at the Cicero-North Syracuse Tournament, which ends tomorrow. And Glen Cove, Ward Melville and West Islip all host tournaments tomorrow.

But the two most anticipated events until the new year are the Long Island Challenge and the Massapequa Tournament.

The L.I. Challenge begins tomorrow with two pools, one at Islip, the other at MacArthur. On Saturday at Islip, the last place teams from each pool will wrestle for seventh place and the third place teams will battle for fifth at 10:00 a.m. Then at 12:30 p.m. the second place teams will wrestle for third, and the top teams will compete in the final. The field for this year's event is stacked, with arguably the top programs in Nassau and Suffolk in Plainedge and Brentwood. MacArthur and Islip make it four teams from Newsday's Top 10 that will be there.

Pool A will be at Islip tomorrow and consists of Islip, MacArthur, Farmingdale and Miller Place. Pool B at MacArthur will be Plainedge, Brentwood, Sayville and MacArthur's "B" squad.

At Massapequa, Hauppauge, Wantagh and the host Chiefs will be the top teams, with Bethpage, Connetquot, Long Beach, Monroe-Woodbury (Section IX), and Syosset also in the field.

Should be a great weekend of wrestling. See you out there, and stay plugged in to all the results on newsday.com, and right here on our wrestling blog.

BY CHRIS MASCARO

So I'm sitting in the office last night and I get a coach calling in a wrestling score. No big deal.

Except the coach says, "Actually, sorry, I have to call back, we're about to go on the Test Track."

AWESOME!!

I was so envious. Especially because it's beautiful there this time of year.

But how cool is it for a high school wrestling team to compete in Disney World? I think it's very cool.

The Sayville team arrived in Orlando on Wednesday, and had three matches on Thursday (all wins), and another two on Friday (two losses) at the Wide World of Sports Complex.

Sayville won both of its matches today, and finished with a 5-2 record, which was good enough for fifth place out of a 12-team field.

"We didn't know what to expect when we got here," said coach Gary Pesko. "But we wrestled well against some tough competition."

Teams from Sachem East and East Meadow had made the trip in years past, and Sayville decided to take it back in April. Plenty of fundraising took place by the Booster Club to make the trip possible.

"It was a great experience for the kids," Pesko said.

The coach added that the trip provided some great memories for his wrestlers. One had never been on a plane, and another had never been to Disney.

When I was in eighth grade, my brother went down to Disney with the high-school marching band, and the rest of my family tagged along (mainly because my mom loves Disney so much). The only reason why I bring this up is because I know what a group trip down there is like, and Pesko confirmed.

All of the Sayville wrestlers got a Park Hopper pass to roam free around the parks, and they stayed at the All-Star Spors Resort.

Pesko even said that the team was heading to Sea World tonight for a dinner banquet and show. Hopefully Shamu will be there.

Anyway, it seems like it was a great trip - for wrestling and bonding - for the Sayville wrestlers.

Okay, that's all the posting for me until after the holiday. A very Merry Christmas, a (belated) Happy Hanukkah, and a Festive Kwanzaa to all!

BY CHRIS MASCARO

Okay folks, it's the moment you've all been waiting for...preview time! It'll actually be in the paper tomorrow, but it's available online right now so I'll link it up.

Here is the Suffolk preview...

...and the Nassau/CHSAA...

...and the wrestlers to watch and team rankings.

In breaking news (Saturday night), MacArthur just beat Massapequa, 36-19. Both teams are in our L.I. top 10 - MacArthur at No. 5, Massapequa at No. 9. Watch out for MacArthur, they could make some serious noise this season in Nassau.

BY CHRIS MASCARO

Last night, Hauppauge cruised past St. Anthony's, 41-12, to stay undefeated on the season.

St. Anthony's also lost to Sachem East today, and has yet to win a dual meet. Though it may be a rough season for the Friars, they do have some solid individual talent. That talent happened to coincide with Hauppauge's on Friday night, which made for some fun matchups in an otherwise lopsided affair.

First, there was the 112-pound bout, where Cold Spring Harbor transfer Grant Greene took on Ken Collado. Grant was the Division II state runner-up at 96 pounds last season, while Collado took sixth in Suffolk at the same weight. Greene managed a relatively easy 10-3 major decision.

The other good matches came back-to-back (thanks to a forfeit by St. Anthony's at 145 pounds). Ken's brother, Keith Collado (who took fourth in Suffolk at 135 pounds), took on Joe Calderone, last year's Catholic state champ at 125. Collado earned a hard-fought 1-0 win.

In the next match at 152 pounds, Pat Fiorvanti (Catholic state runner-up at 145) met Jon Senese of Hauppauge (third in Suffolk at 140), and Senese took a 5-3 decision.

In conclusion, it looks like placing 1-4 in Suffolk means you can probably make it to the Catholic state final, and Grant will probably dominate the Catholic League.

BY CHRIS MASCARO

The wonders of the Internet sometimes surprise me ... and I'm only 23!! ... and have had Internet probably since the 6th grade!!

But get this, wrestlers (or wrestling enthusiasts) are now putting full matches, or just some clips, on YouTube. (That is Stephen Dutton of Hauppauge getting pinned in last year's 119-pound state final...sorry Stephen).

And all of the matches seem to have cool soundtracks to add to the entertainment value.

Here's Shoreham-Wading River's Steven Keith at the Eastern states (with more cool tunes).

And here's Wantagh's Paul Liguori winning last year's state final at 119 (with more cool music ... think NBA on TNT).

Maybe this new fad isn't shocking to people, but it's pretty cool to an old timer like me who wrestled before YouTube existed and matches were taped on—get this—VHS tapes!

It also gives current wrestlers a chance to scout their competition without having to roll up with their boys to another school donning their letter jackets. I mean, you can still do that, but I always thought that was pretty weak.

Feel free to post more matches from YouTube in the comments section if you do so desire.

Also, it seems like someone named "dckundr" posts a lot of these matches. If you are out there, give me a shout.

BY CHRIS MASCARO

I pose this question to all of you because I really don't know myself. Glenn cruised in Suffolk's Division II last season, with 11 finalists. But only one, Mike Castellano, placed in the Division II states, as Glenn finished 38th.

This is the fifth season with a separate Division II, and in all five, Long Island teams have struggled at the states (mainly because there aren't that many D2 clubs on L.I. compared to upstate). In the coming weeks I'll post more about the debate over why a Division II even exists. But for now, I am curious to see about Glenn.

For the past few years, the team that won Division II has made a successful transition up to Division I the next year. It was Mount Sinai last year, Shoreham-Wading River the year before that, and Eastport-South Manor the year before that. It's almost like the European soccer teams getting promoted to the big time if they win the lower league.

Except there is no relegation. So Suffolk's Division II is a watered down "half-league" consisting of just these seven squads (courtesy of sectionxi.org):

Division 2
League 7*
Southampton
Babylon
Hampton Bays
C Moriches
Port Jefferson
McGann-Mercy
Stony Brook

See how it says League 7 with an asterisk? Well that's because all of the other leagues have a league tournament to qualify for the counties, but anybody from League VII can compete in the Division II tournament (again, more on this when I post my Division II argument in the coming weeks).

So this year it's Glenn's turn. I have no doubt in my mind that Glenn will be a strong team, but I need to curb my enthusiasm, if you will, about their chances. They wrestled pretty subpar competition last year, as evident by the fact that the 103-, 112- and 119-pound finals were all-Glenn affairs .

Glenn has brought back most of its talent from last season, and has five wrestlers ranked in the county at Division I, including sophomore Nick Meinsen at 103, who beat Syosset's Danny Arnel (placed sixth in the Division I states at 96 pounds last year) at a tournament.

Am I sold? Not yet. As I said before, Glenn has plenty of talent, but needs to show a little more because of where it was last year. So I kept the Knights out of my Long Island top 10 (in Sunday's preview) for now. But with a few more impressive wins, Glenn could certainly crack that list in a hurry. Stay tuned.

**UPDATE: I realized after I wrote this post that I probably say how Glenn is doing thus far as a team. Well, the Knights were second at the Bethpage Dad's Club Tournament behind MacArthur in a relatively competitive field, and defeated St. Anthony's (42-18) on December 14 and Commack (39-23) on December 19. Not bad, but again, not enough to show who they really are yet.

As we speak, Glenn is hosting Cold Spring Harbor and Manhasset, two Division II schools from Nassau. Manhasset was the D2 champ in Nassau last year, and should provide a bit of a challenge.

BY CHRIS MASCARO

(Full disclosure before I even start this entry: I am a 2002 West Islip graduate and wrestled there all four years of high school).

Earlier tonight, Islip lost its first dual meet to a Long Island team since 2003. According to West Islip head coach John Sparacio, the Lions' home gym was electric for the last match at 130 pounds between senior Sean Messina (WI) and freshman Kyle Wade (I).

The match was knotted at 24 to that point, and then Messina—after getting put to his back in the first period—came back for a 5-4 win to give his team the final three-point advantage.

It was a signature win for a West Islip program that got blitzed by Islip, the 2006-07 Suffolk champion, 52-12 last season.

This is Sparacio's second season at the helm at West Islip after taking over for long-time coach Tony Mellino. Yet Sparacio, who was a two-time All-County wrestler himself at North Babylon, has been coaching in the district for 11 seasons now.

When he took over before the 2005-06 season, he put the onus on finding tough non-league competition, including matches against both Hauppauge and Islip each of the past two seasons.

"That's the philosphy," Sparacio told me after the Islip win. "The only way to get better is to up the ante of the competition."

It looks as if its beginning to pay off, as West Islip is arguably the fourth best team in the county (you can see who Nos. 1-3 are in Sunday's preview). They are certainly the team to beat in League III, and have three wrestlers ranked in the county, not including senior Patrick Bell, who is the team's only returning All-County performer from last season. It also doesn't include junior Peter Gonzalez, who placed sixth in the county at 96 pounds in 2005-06.

Things are looking up for the Lions, but don't forget their 33-18 loss to Hauppauge just a week ago. There's still a ways to go before we talk about West Islip being in the county-title hunt.

As far as Islip, this loss by no means is a foreshadowing of things to come. Of course the Bucs were bound to have some problems after graduating three state placewinners, including one champion (Lance Wade). But they have a good mix of veterans (seniors Jake Benedetto and John LaMonica) and up-and-comers (junior Cody Hinrichs and Matt Egan, and the rookie Wade), so look for Islip to, as usual, win League V, and be among the county's elite teams at the end of the season.

BY CHRIS MASCARO

In working on the Long Island wrestling previews (which come out this Sunday, fyi), I've noticed a trend that Long Island wrestlers have a sort of pipeline to Ivy League programs. We all know about Corey (a freshman) and Jesse Jantzen (a 2004 graduate) at Harvard.

And Dan Miracola, a 2002 SWR graduate, wrestled for Cornell.

But there are many, many more. Wantagh's Steven Bonanno will attend Brown next year. His coach, Jim Murphy, has been in contact with Harvard about the team's star, two-time state champ Paul Liguori. Shoreham-Wading River's Steven Keith has Penn and Cornell on his wish list.

Sure, all of the people I just named were from the same two schools, and two haven't even been accepted yet, but there are others on current Ivy rosters.

Jack Sullivan was a state placewinner at Huntington and now competes at Penn, Eren Civan (Walt Whitman) and Paul Vaeth (Islip) are both at Columbia, and Stephen DeLorenzo (MacArthur), Dave Foxen (Garden City) and Mike Piccirillo (Commack) are all at Brown. Considering there are only six Ivy League schools with a wrestling program (Dartmouth and Yale do not have teams), that is a pretty large number from Long Island.

I know the good lacrosse schools (good meaning ahletically and academically) pluck many of their players from Long Island, but lacrosse is only played in certain parts of the country. Wrestling is competed on throughout the nation.

Please let me know if I missed anybody in the comments section, or of there are any other L.I. student-athletes wrestling at some of the country's top universities (or anywhere for that matter).

(Full disclosure on this post: I graduated from Cornell and covered their wrestling team while up there. The Big Red also routinely wins the Ivy League title.)

***UPDATE***: So apparently, I missed someone from my own alma mater. My apologies to Maciej Jochym from Herricks, last year's state champ at 215. Thanks to "joe" for posting this in the comments section.

BY CHRIS MASCARO

First off, hello to all the Long Island wrestling enthusiasts out there. I know you are plentiful, so hopefully this blog will satisfy your every wrestling need.

On Friday night, I was at the Deer Park-MacArthur match that paid tribute to the late Ed Luksik, Jr., a long-time coach and teacher at Deer Park. It was very touching to see the outpouring of support for the event.

Deer Park annually holds an alumni gathering for its first home match of the year, but since Luksik passed away in late November, it changed into a tribute to him, which included the announcement that the wrestling room at Deer Park would be named in his honor.

Angie Luksik, Ed's wife, was gracious enough to talk to me before the match. She was obviously very emotional, but was able to speak about her husband and how much he loved Deer Park and his former wrestlers.

Sixty alums came back for the match and the post-match dinner, which raised money for a scholarship fund in Luksik's name. Howie Greenblatt, MacArthur's coach and a 1981 Deer Park grad, Nick Gallo, a 1973 grad who later won a national title at Hofstra, and Ted DePasquale, a Suffolk champion under Luksik, all spoke glowingly about their former coach.

The end of Gallo's speech was the most pointed moment of the evening, as he said, "[Coach Luksik] is here with us. He's us."

It was an amazing tribute to a fine coach. Here is a link to a Luksik memorial page through longislandwrestling.com, where people can find out how to donate to the scholarship.

Feel free to post your feelings about Coach Luksik in our comments section.

Marc Jimenez was born and raised in the Bronx, graduated from SUNY Purchase in 2000 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Literature and decided to try his hand at sportswriting in the fall of 2005. He covered high school and college sports for the Riverdale Press for six months and was a contributor to MLB.com for 18 months before joining Newsday in September 2007. Marc’s favorite sports moment was when the Yankees clinched the 1996 World Series.

Marcus Henry began working for Newsday’s city edition in April 2003. He’s been a part of the Newsday high school/local college sports desk since then, covering both Long Island and New York City high schools. He has also covered the WNBA’s New York Liberty the past two seasons. Prior to coming to Newsday he spent four years working for PA SportsTicker, a real time sports newswire service. Marcus has also freelanced for the New York Amsterdam News, College and Pro Football Weekly, and the National Sports Weekly. In addition to his work on the local desk, Marcus is also a huge boxing fan. He has covered several fights for Newsday, including the Oscar De La Hoya-Floyd Mayweather fight and the recent Miguel Cotto-Shane Mosley battle.

Darren Sands was born in Manhasset, but moved to Boston at age 10. And yes, he is a Red Sox/Patriots/Celtics fan. Sands, 23, has been with Newsday since March 2007. He attended Hofstra where he worked for the student newspaper, the Hofstra Chronicle. Sands moved back to Boston where he wrote for the Boston Globe's City Weekly section, and served a brief stint as a weekend news assistant on the city desk. When Sands isn't writing, reading, or hopelessly trying to lower his handicap, he catches up with friends and family, and plays tennis with the good folks at the tennis courts on 151st and Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard. He resides in Harlem and, thanks to his girlfriend, is an adopted member of the Hokie Nation.

Joseph Staszewski is a 23-year-old graduate of St. Francis Prep High School. He graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism from St. John's University. While at St. John's, Staszewski held the position of sports editor and managing editor during his four years working at The Torch, the school's award-winning student newspaper. The Middle Village resident has also freelanced for the Queens Ledger, TimesLedger and Long Island Herald newspapers. Starting his second year at Newsday, Staszewski is a die-hard Mets and Jets fan, and a former high school basketball player and assistant coach.

Adam Ronis covers mostly high school and college sports, and some professional sports. He has worked at Newsday for six years covering Long Island and city high schools. He also worked at the Boca Raton News. Ronis, 29, is a fantasy sports guru and holds numerous championships in baseball, football, and basketball. He is a fan of the Mets, Dallas Cowboys, and Rangers. Ronis is a softball nut, playing on several teams. He is from Flushing and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Media Studies and a minor in Journalism from Queens College.

Chris Mascaro, 23, joined Newsday as a sportswriter in November 2007. He graduated from Cornell University in 2006, where he worked for The Cornell Daily Sun. He served as sports editor of The Sun as a junior. He also covered Cornell's football team, as well as its nationally-ranked men's hockey and men's lacrosse teams. He wrote a bi-weekly column titled "He May Be Tall," which hit on national topics in addition to Cornell-related material. After graduation, he worked as a sportswriter for The Southampton Press, covering numerous varsity teams on the East End, the Moriches, and William Floyd.

Alex Labidou joined Newsday as a sportswriter in October 2007. Labidou, 24, is a graduate of Pace University with a B.A. in English. After graduating, he joined the National Basketball Association where he was an editorial assistant handling web editing and covering various NBA events. He is a New York City native. Labidou has also been a production intern at ABC News Magazines (Primetime and 20&20) and a contributor to VIBE, HoopsHype and the upcoming SET magazine. He is an avid Knicks, Yankees and Jets fan.

Roderick Boone is a native Long Islander. He graduated from Uniondale High School in 1993 and received his degree in mass communications from Auburn University Montgomery. He began his career as a correspondent at the Montgomery Advertiser before spending time at the Elmira Star-Gazette, Poughkeepsie Journal, and The Journal News. He's covered a wide variety of sports in his career, ranging from high schools to the pros. But his true love lies with basketball.

Gregg Sarra, 46, has worked at Newsday for the past 21 years. He has won numerous sportswriting awards and been cited by various officials and coaches associations for his reporting. He was voted the New York High School Sportswriter of the Year in 2002, 2003 and 2005. He is a member of the Dowling College athletic Hall of Fame, the Men's Senior Baseball Hall of Fame and the Long Island Flag Football Hall of Fame for his many successes on a national level on the diamond and the gridiron.

Kimberley A. Martin spent the past year working as a local sports reporter at The Record (Hackensack, N.J.), covering everything from high school fencing to The New York City marathon to New York Jets practice. She received her B.A. from Wesleyan University in 2003 and her master's from Syracuse University in 2006. Prior to grad school, she worked at an investment management firm in Midtown Manhattan. Kimberley is also a native New Yorker and a huge Yankees fan.

Laura Albanese, 21, started at Newsday as a news intern in June 2007 and joined the high school sports desk in November. She graduated summa cum laude from Brooklyn College, where she served as the Brooklyn College Kingsman’s editor-in-chief and earned her B.A. in journalism. She’s also written for the Daily News and freelanced for a number of Long Island community weeklies. A Brooklyn native, she grew up a baseball junkie in a soccer family and remains a loyal fan of both the New York Mets and Seria A soccer.