IS GETTING ITS DRAFT BOARD READY
Here at Rally, we're always in favor of fairness. In Monday's Inquirer, I wrote a column that expressed disappointment over the ending in Saturday's PIAA Class AAA boys' soccer state championship game. Father Judge, of course, tied Central Dauphin and both were awarded co-championships instead of the game being decided by penalties.
As I said in the column, this is a practice that the PIAA has followed forever, for a few reasons. I reached out to Hal Heffelfinger, the District 1 chairperson for soccer, to get a better sense of the reasoning behind the rules.
Heffelfinger is also the former boys' soccer coach at Neshaminy and in 1994, his team was crowned co-champs with Bethel Park. Hal sent me a detailed e-mail I wanted to share with everyone:
Softball pitcher Krysti Maronski today became the first athlete from Gloucester County Institute of Technology to sign a national letter of intent with a Division I program.
Maronski, a senior, signed with Rider University in a ceremony in the school's media center.
Maronski has been the driving force in the Cheetahs' stunning emergence as a softball power.
Maronski is a career .488 hitter with 106 hits in three seasons. She has a 36-17 pitching record in three seasons, with a 1.43 ERA and 498 strikeouts in 351 innings.
Maronski has led GCIT to the sectional finals in softball in each of the last two seasons. The Cheetahs lost to Pennsville in the S.J. Group 1 finals in 2008 and lost a 1-0 game to Overbrook in the S.J. Group 2 finals in 2009.
Maronski also led GCIT to the championship of the Tri-County Conference's Diamond Division in 2009. That division includes perenniel powers Pennsville and Gloucester Catholic.
-- Phil Anastasia
The Cape Atlantic League girls’ and boys’ all-star soccer game that was supposed to be tonight at St. Augustine has been cancelled. School officials at St. Augustine said that there does not expect to be a makeup date.
The inclement weather caused the cancellation.
There will be two public school SJ football championships played on Friday Dec. 4 and two more on Saturday Dec. 5. The dates were set today although the time of the Group 1 final is still uncertain.
Here are the matchups.
Group 4: Egg Harbor Township (10-0) at Cherokee (10-0), 1 p.m Saturday Dec. 5.
Group 3: Timber Creek (8-2) at Hammonton (9-1), 7 p.m. Friday Dec. 4.
Group 2: Haddonfield (9-1) at Delsea (10-0), 7 p.m. Friday Dec. 4
Group 1 Paulsboro (9-1) at Woodbury (9-1), Saturday Dec. 5 Time TBA.
The NJSIAA assigns all the games to be played on Saturday at 1 p.m. unless both schools agree to move it to Friday evening.Before the Tournament of Champions final Sunday I was speaking with Shore Regional field hockey coach Nancy Williams at TR East when I mentioned that Oak Knoll, a Group 1 team, had defeated Eastern, a Group 4 team, in aTournament of Champions semifinal in 2007.
Shore is a Group 1 school, I noted, so the Blue Devils had a chance against bigger Eastern.
Williams dismissed the notion by saying that Oak Knoll is a private school that draws athletes from all over the country.
Then I looked in the NJSIAA booklet and saw that Shore had recently defeated Oak Knoll, 2-0, in the North 2 Group 1 championship game.
However, the Blue Devils didn't get by the vaunted Vikings. eastern won, 8-2.
Friday
PIAA District 1 Class AAAA Semifinals
Avon Grove (11-1) at North Penn (12-0), 7:30 p.m.
Downingtown East (10-2) at Ridley (11-1), 7 p.m.
PIAA Class AA First Round
West Catholic (10-2) vs. Dunmore (12-0), at Palisades High in Kintnersville, 7 p.m.
Saturday
PIAA District 12 Class AAAA Final
La Salle (10-1) vs. George Washington (8-2), at Northeast, 12 p.m.
PIAA District 1 Class AAA Final
Interboro (12-0) vs. Pottsgrove (12-0), at Coatesville, 7 p.m.
PIAA Class A First Round
St. Pius X (8-4) vs. Tri-Valley (8-4), at Williams Valley High in Tower City, 7 p.m.
Eastern defeated Shore Regional in the field hockey Tournament of Champions final, 8-2.
Eastern center forward Kelsey Mitchell scored a pair of goals to end her high school career with 69 and 171 goals in a season and career, respectively.
Mitchell tied the single-season scoring record held by Michelle Vizzuso of West Essex since 1994.
Here are links to the playoff brackets for the local football tournaments:
--To the District 1 football brackets:
http://district-one.net/football.asp
--To the PIAA football bracket page:
http://www.piaa.org/news/details.aspx?ID=1797
--To the NJSIAA football bracket page:
After Palmyra and Jonathan Dayton ended the state Group 1 boys championship soccer game in a scoreless tie Saturday, I sensed a feeling of relief by both teams.
No player or coach was complaining about not winning. They seemed to be content with a tie by two teams that worked hard against each other for 100 minutes of play.
And that was understandable, since neither the Panthers nor the Bulldogs had ever won a state crown.
However, Palmyra did leave with the trophy after winning a coin flip to decide who would take it home.
That made Palmyra feel a lot better.
