OCT Celebrates 10th Anniversary: Ossining & Croton Daily Sports Digest, Feb. 28

Welcome to Patch's daily snapshot of sports in Ossining & Croton.

Ossining Community Tennis

We thank Ossining Community Tennis for the below submission and wish it the best in celebrating its 10th Anniversary:

Ossining Community Tennis celebrates its 10th anniversary this year. A member organization of the United States Tennis Association, under the supervision of Ossining Parks and Recreation, OCT creates and implements tennis programming for the local community.

It currently runs an indoor "Quickstart" program for 10 and under youngsters and a summer camp tennis program; supports three USTA Junior Team Tennis teams; manages three adult county teams and six adult USTA League teams as well as coordinating three sanctioned USTA tournaments.

The tennis association will use its annual fund-raiser, on  Friday, March 2nd to celebrate ten years of organized tennis programming in Ossining.

OCT president, Shannon Ross commented that this year is very special; "As well as it being our 10th birthday, 2012 is a landmark year for us as we will see the culmination of our "lights' initiative with the installation of lighting at Nelson Park. This is most important to us as our programming has outgrown the available court time. Lit courts will mean more programming and more tennis for the community". 

The lights initiative was started almost four years ago. OCT raised over $20000.00 towards this objective. Thanks to fortuitious timing, the United States Tennis Association donated light structures from the National Tennis Center to the . These lights became available as the USTA facility in Queens, home of the US Open, was re-configuring two courts which required different light fixtures. The original lights and poles were donated to the Ossining organization.

Village of Ossining trustees utilized a development fund designated for capital recreation projects to pay for the $91,000 installation cost. It is anticipated the courts will be lit for the spring/summer outdoor season. The proceeds from this years fund raiser will go to increasing and enhancing programming for junior players.

"Our programs are open to all local youngsters with fees kept as reasonable as possible", Ms. Ross stated. "We utilize the "pathways" provided by USTA junior programming and hope to become more of a feeder engine for high school or modified varsity. Many varsity tennis programs are particularly in need of girl players and we hope to introduce tennis and its benefits to more girls in Ossining".

To kick off this new initiative, Ossining Recreation and Ossining Community Tennis will host a USTA "March into Tennis" event at the Community Center on Thursday, March 29th from 4PM to 7PM.

Representatives from the USTA and Ossining Community Tennis will be available to introduce USTA instructional programs to interested local children and their families.

Interactive demonstrations will feature "10 and under" Quickstart and the  USTA Junior Team Tennis program; a popular competitive format for young players, 10 through 17, which often serves as a feed in to high school varsity.

OCT is preparing a  junior training format to introduce and intensify tennis training for interested young players starting in late April.

"Tennis is potentially the "lacrosse" for this decade," Ms. Ross commented. " Back in the late 80's and 90's many parents realized that lacrosse, typically more of a prep school sport than part of the public school athletic curriculum, was a possible gateway to some top schools for talented student athletes. Many college coaches, particularly in Divisions II and III are looking for tennis players now. There is a notable shortage of girls available to populate varsity squads in many sections of the country.

No one should plan on a tennis scholarship or entrance into the top tier collegiate teams but it can mean the difference between your child's 1st and 2nd choice if s(he) has solid high school varsity experience to offer". OCT hopes to have a USTA representative to speak on this topic for the March event.

For more details, or to register, please contact Shannon Ross at sssross@aol.com. 

County Center Tidbits

The semifinals and finals of the Section 1 boys basketball tournament are being held at the Westchester County Center in White Plains this week.

Josh Thomson of the LoHud Varsity Insider goes over 10 things to watch.

Check it out here.

MSG Varsity Boys

MSG Varsity previewed No. 6 Croton-Harmon's Section 1 Class B boys basketball semifinal contest against No. 2 Albertus Magnus at 3 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 29.

To see the preview of that game and other semifinals, click on Jordan Griffith's story.

Weekly Sports Poll

This was created by our own :

Major League Baseball lost a great earlier this month, former Met and Expo Gary Carter. 

Eleven years after he retired, Carter was elected into the baseball Hall of Fame and many consider him one of the best catchers of all time. 

But where do you think “Kid” ranks among the best New York back stops of all time?

On tap today:

 and :

No games scheduled.

Source: http://sportspakdb.lhric.org

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