Sports Recap: Trawick Has One More Hurdle

For Fox Lane’s Will Trawick, he is one successful tryout away from realizing his goal of playing in the Basketball Coaches Association of New York (BCANY) Festival Aug. 5-7 on various courts in the Johnson City School District upstate.

The tournament was created to fill the void that was left with the cancellation of this year’s Empire State Games.

Competing in the BCANY games are Hudson Valley (Section 1), Albany and North (Section 2 and 7), Syracuse and North (Section 3 and 10), Southern Tier (Section 4 and 9), Rochester (Section 5), Buffalo (Section 6), New York City (Public, Private, Catholic) and Long Island (Sections 8 and 11).

Trawick is one of the remaining 16 players competing for a spot on the Hudson Valley squad with the final tryout being 6-8 p.m. Wednesday, July 6 at New Rochelle High School. The squad will be cut to 10 players and two alternates.

“It feels good to make it this far,” Trawick said. “There are a lot of good players. Some I know just playing in our high-school league and playing AAU.”

For Trawick, the chance to have the opportunity to make the Hudson Valley team is something that he couldn’t pass up.

“It’s the opportunity to play on a team with the best players in the section,” Trawick said. “We play every section in New York so you know that there is going to be some good competition.”

While excited, Trawick admits the experience of trying out for a team like this is nerve-racking at the same time.

“It’s a big-time team,” Trawick said. “You play Long Island, you play kids from the Catholic schools, you are playing kids from Jamesville-Dewitt up north. I really want to make the team but I just have to go out and play.”

Trawick, who played center last winter in his junior campaign at Fox Lane, said he thinks he will play power forward or even some shooting forward in his senior year.

“I’m more of an outside player now just because I worked on my perimeter shooting and dribbling abilities,” Trawick said.

Greeley award winners

Horace Greeley’s girls lacrosse squad went from a 1-14-1 record a season ago to 7-11 this past campaign, including a huge 10-9 playoff win against Somers, and with that came just awards.

Earning all-section was senior attack Jess Kreisler.

“I will be sorry to see her go,” Greeley coach Annamarie Marasco said. “She was a four-year varsity player. She was our leading goal-scorer the past two years. Her leadership was unbelievable during practices and games.”

All-section honorable mention honors went to junior defensive middie Issy Berkey.

“She is one of those players that makes competition out of every game and everything,” Marasco said. “She just loves to compete, loves to play. She just has a lot of energy. She is going to be one of our captains next year.”

Marasco is also looking forward to having all-league sophomore center Maura Grant back next spring.

“She played last year, she actually started last year for me,” Marasco said. “She has great potential. She is starting to come into it and believe in herself. We are looking for a lot from her in the next two years.”

What Marasco is hoping for her squad in those next two years is that they can build off this spring’s success, which included the emotional playoff win against the Tuskers.

Making the game a unique experience for Marasco is that all her kids either played or are playing at Somers in Matthew (Class of 2007), Joe (’09), Katie (’10) and Christopher, who just finished his sophomore year at Somers.

Matthew graduated this spring from West Point, where he played for the Cadets while Joe and Katie are currently playing at Syracuse and LaSalle.

“It was definitely emotional but it was great for our program,” Marasco said. “We were a young team, we were the 12th seed in the playoffs. We were the underdog and won the first round, which is huge. We just couldn’t do it in the second round (against Brewster). We’re hoping the experience of getting there will help us for next year.”