Sports
New City Rams Ready to Tackle a New Season
Pop Warner football players and cheerleaders look to repeat - or surpass - last year's winning ways.
With plenty to be proud of after a successful 2009 season, the New City Rams Pop Warner Program began the 2010 season Monday with practices for all age groups, both football and cheerleading, at Felix V. Festa Middle School in West Nyack.
The entire organization is excited for the new season after the Junior Midget Rams Cheerleaders grabbed the 3rd place finish at Semi Nationals in Trenton, N.J., and the Peewee Football Rams won the State Championship.
Rory Spreckman, head coach of the defending state champions (Peewee Rams), preached "one game at a time," while trying to remind his team of the work that went into each win last season. With two thirds of the team returning from last year, hopes are high going into the 2010 season.
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Spreckman is very well respected by the team and his assistant coaches after last season's success.
"In 18 years of coaching, this coaching staff gets the team better prepared than any other team I have been around," said assistant coach Ed Day. With Jim O'Neil returning to coach the offense and Bob Gallo hopping back on the defensive side of the ball, the Peewee Rams have both the coaching and the talent to return to the State Championships.
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On Sept. 12, the Rams will take the field for their first game, but as the Rams coaching staff stressed, a successful season begins with practice. With a month of drills, sprints, team meetings and of course plenty of water breaks ahead of them, preparing for their first game against the Ramapo Hornets is the Rams' only priority.
On the other side of the Felix V Festa practice fields were the Rams Cheerleaders. The Junior Midget Cheerleading team fell a half a point shy of qualifying for Nationals in the 2009 season. Finishing third in a competition that could have sent the top two teams to Nationals at Disney's Wide World of Sports Complex left the squad motivated and ready to accomplish their goal of reaching Nationals this year.
Miriam Belitz, commissioner of cheerleading, was both proud and excited when looking forward at the squad's upcoming season. After last year's run, the Rams organization expects nothing less than success from the Rams Cheerleaders this time.
More information on the New City Rams is available online at their website, www.newcityrams.com.
