Archive for the ‘SportsDashboards Salutes’ Category

SportsDashboards salutes: Novato Youth Football players who earned academic recognition

Monday, September 19th, 2011 by

Novato Youth Cheer spices up the Tiny Mites and Cadets games.

Novato Youth Football is part of the national American Youth Football organization. AYF puts an emphasis on scholarship as well as athletic prowess.

If a student does not maintain a passing average, he or she cannot participate in football and cheer activities. This is not quite the wink-wink rule that it is in some high schools and colleges, where superior athletes are passed through the system with sufficient grades to remain eligible.

Because AYF groups have no close ties to schools, the students actually have to earn their grades because of their scholarship, not because of their contribution to a school team. That means that inclusion on this NYF list of students recognized for academic achievement carries far more weight than a similar list would carry from many high schools or colleges.

SportsDashboards salutes the following students for their classroom achievement. Students are grouped by the team they play for. Pictures of Novato Cheer teams adorn this story because these students deserve to be cheered.

Rumble Bees (Tiny Mites)
Dylan Burness
Bryce Callahan
Cameron Changeux
Haroute Giragossian
Brett Huser
Hunter Smith

Mighty Bees (Cadets)
Joseph Bailey
Ryan Dolan
Logan Ebenal
Christopher Falvey
John Griffin
Reed Hall
Kyle Kelly
Conor Mack
Isaiah McGrue
James Rutledge

Killer Bees (Jr Pee-Wee)
Brad Arata
Angel Camacho
Jack Carlson
Bailey Denton
Maxwell Grabovac
Jayden Herrera
Matthew Hudson
Caleb Jerinic Brodeur
Luisangel Lara
Michael Obukhov

The older cheer team roots for the Stingers and Jr. Midgets.

Stingers (Pee-Wee)
Colton Carry
Mario Corral
Conor Elliott
Matthew Foley
Joseph Hudson
Maxwell Kehs
Joseph Lundberg
Julius Pelletier

Yellow Jackets (Jr Midgets)
Nader Afrakhan
Ryan Burness
Joshua Chable-Sasiu
Casey Denton
Justin Hemphill
Raynan Lack
Donald Preseley
Adrian Ramos
Christian Richter
Riley Wilmott
Vincent Toberman

Cheer
Grisselle De Leon
Krystal Gutierrez
Emma Huser
Julia Christina Schulman

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SportsDashboards salutes Annie Boyer and the Redwood Giants

Monday, July 4th, 2011 by

The determination on Annie Boyer's face tells you all you need to know about why the Redwood Giants are once again MCAL champions.

There are a lot of words that describe Annie Boyer and her Redwood Giants teammates … but the one word that captures it all is champion.

When you talk about Marin County Athletic League softball, the 800-pound gorilla in the room is Redwood. They’ve won the last six conference championships, which means that the 11 seniors on this year’s squad never experienced an unsuccessful season.

It’s not unheard of for a high school athletic program to achieve similar dominance. The basic ingredients are a feeder program that starts to develop skills prior to high school and then a high school coach who can mold those talents into a cohesive team.

Redwood had the feeder program, with most of its players coming out of the Marin Girls Softball organization. And after six consecutive titles, the bona fides of coach Gary Casassa are unquestioned.
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SportsDashboards year-end salute: Camille Gaito and the UCSD Tritons

Monday, February 28th, 2011 by

Camille Gaito

SportsDashboards year-end player salutes go to Camille Gaito and Kim Scarsella. Both are outstanding softball pitchers who honed their craft playing for Marin Girls Softball teams. Pitching success is often viewed as an individual achievement, but no pitcher succeeds without the offensive and defensive support of her teammates. Consequently, this recognition is not just for the pitcher but for her team as well.

This is the salute to Camille Gaito and the University of California at San Diego Tritons. The salute to Kim Scarsella and the Tamalpais High School Hawks from Californiais here.
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SportsDashboards year-end salute: Kim Scarsella and the Tamalpais Hawks

Monday, February 28th, 2011 by

Kim Scarsella

A strong postseason and all-California honors earn Kim Scarsella a SportsDashboards year-end player salute.

This recognition is shared with Camille Gaito. Both Gaito and Scarsella are outstanding softball pitchers who honed their craft playing for Marin Girls Softball teams. Pitching success is often viewed as an individual achievement, but no pitcher succeeds without the offensive and defensive support of her teammates. Consequently, this recognition is not just for the pitcher but for her team as well.

This is the salute to Kim Scarsella and the Tamalpais, California, High School Hawks. The salute to Camille Gaito and the University of California at San Diego Tritons is here.
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SportsDashboards year-end salute: Organizations that make a difference: Marin Girls Softball and St. Mary’s CYO

Thursday, January 27th, 2011 by

Every organization that sponsors youth sports activities extends tendrils that reach into the future, providing for their participants some of the building blocks that can lead to a strong personal foundation as they reach adulthood. Marin Girls Softball in California represents the best that youth sports has to offer,

Naysayers of youth sports point to overaggressive coaches who have their teams run up scores against overmatched opponents. They cite out-of-conrol parents who scream at officials, coaches, the opposing team, members of their children’s team and, sometimes, even their own children. Their criticism consists of statements that life is not about who scored the most points, who won by the biggest margin, or whose negativity was heard over the satisfaction and contentment of the majority. (Continued below.)

Catholic Youth Organization programs offer bountiful opportunities for youth to test their skill and interest in a variety of activities. The basketball program at St. Mary’s of Manhasset, on Long Island, New York, epitomizes the best of these programs.

St. Mary’s offers playing opportunities for youth from the third grade through high school. Players can participate in intramural programs or try to qualify for a travel team that will play their counterparts from other CYO organizations. Part of the Nassau and Suffolk Archdiocese, St. Mary’s provides basketball opportunities for more than 900 youths. It’s how they do it that makes St. Mary’s special. (Continued below.)

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SportsDashboards year-end salute: Football is the name of the game for the Southern Marin Broncos and Tuscarora Jr. Titans

Tuesday, January 25th, 2011 by

For the second consecutive year, the Southern Marin Broncos, from Marin County, California, sent a team to the American Youth Football Division 2 national championships. As documented here, the Bronco Jr. Midgets won the national championship in 2009. The 2010 Jr. Peewees earned third place at the Nationals, losing only to the eventual champions from Shabbona, an Illinois powerhouse.

2010 also marked the first year the Broncos competed in the NorCal Conference. As a Division 2 team, they acquitted themselves well; all five teams earned playoff berths and four of the teams made the finals. That’s a spectacular showing in their first year, considering that some of the teams they faced were from Sacramento, Oakland and San Jose, areas with many more kids to draw from. (Continued below.)

Across the country, the Tuscarora Jr. Titans of Maryland were flexing their muscles in the Mountain Valley Youth Football League. The MVYFL offers three levels of play for kids who are not yet in high school. All three Tuscarora teams earned playoff spots and two teams were crowned champions.

The Titans JV entry swept through its division undefeated. The varsity team lost one game during the regular season before dominating the playoffs. (Continued below.)

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Sports Dashboards salutes coach D’wan Marshall

Saturday, August 28th, 2010 by

Coach D'wan Marshall

It’s a fundamental tenet: sports participation can teach us some of life’s important lessons.

But there are some situations that sports can’t address, such as the one coach D’wan Marshall, founder of the Team Marshall Longhorns in Kansas City, MO, faced this year.

Marshall started his team a decade ago, to reach out to young boys. He teaches life lessons as well as baseball. He defines winning, not just in terms of the scoreboard, but in terms of being responsible, respectable and accountable. Off the field, his boys have blossomed.

On the field, his instruction culminated in winning the 2009 Satchell Paige American League pennant.

As he prepared for the 2010 season, his wife was diagnosed with cancer.

Coping with the news that a loved one has been diagnosed with a serious disease or illness is not one of the lessons you usually learn in sports. For many people, the news brings a numbness or paralysis. But Marshall was up to the challenge.

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Sports Dashboards salutes the Marin FC 15U soccer team

Tuesday, August 17th, 2010 by

A Marin County, California, team of 14-year-olds spent a fortnight this Summer overturning much of what we thought we knew about the relative merits of youth soccer programs in Europe and America.

Italy and Spain are the last two World Cup champions, bastions of European soccer supremacy. The Marin FC 15U team entered tournaments in those two countries and marched to the championship game in each while the soccer world was focussed on World Cup 2010.

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Sports Dashboards Salutes: Trailblazing Smackers 10U Softball Team

Saturday, July 3rd, 2010 by

This is a story that encompasses two magnificent feats.

Primarily, it’s about a group of young — as in under 10 — softball players who achieved a first in Marin softball history. The Nor-Cal Smackers 10U softball team traveled to Sunnyvale, went undefeated in four games over a three-day tournament, and earned the right to participate in the Amateur Softball Association Class A National 10U tournament. The Smackers are the first 10U team representing Marin to earn a berth in the national tournament, paving the way for future young teams to find their way into national competition.

But this story is also about the organization which they represent. The Smackers are only in their second full year of operation. To have brought a team along to the point of qualifying for an ASA national tournament is a real tribute to the coaching and management of the Smackers.

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Sports Dashboards Salutes: Camille Gaito

Friday, May 28th, 2010 by

Camille Gaito delivering a pitch for her UCSD team.

The numbers don’t lie: Camille Gaito is among the elite college softball pitchers in the nation, but that’s not the only reason Sports Dashboards salutes her.

The numbers are a good place to start. Gaito ended her season with a 0.96 earned run average while pitching for the University of California at San Diego. The Tritons play in NCAA Division II as a member of the California Collegiate Athletic Association.

How good is 0.96? It’s third in the nation. Of the 300 pitchers that the NCAA tracked who pitched more than 100 innings this season in Division II, only two pitchers recorded lower numbers. For those of you into that kind of metric, it means that she is in the 100th percentile. She is among the creme de la creme. A pitcher nonpareil.

This season, she finished with an 18-10 win-loss record and her team was ranked 10th among all colleges competing in the Western Region.

The thing is, Camille Gaito is only a sophomore. When you’re already at the top, what more is there to strive for? Well, there are some individual honors that have eluded her and there are plenty of team accomplishments that will have to wait for next season.

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Posted in Marin Girls Softball, Softball, SportsDashboards Salutes | 2 Comments »

SportsDashboards salutes Marin Girls Softball

Thursday, May 6th, 2010 by

The values of participating in youth sport groups are well known. A non-comprehensive list would include such things as developing cooperative skills through teamwork, dealing with the highs of winning and the lows of losing, learning sportsmanship skills, and experiencing camaraderie with teammates, coaches and family. Oh yeah, having fun comes in there pretty high as well. Some organizations are better at one facet of youth sports than others. But every kid benefits to some degree by participating.

Then there’s that more prominent facet of any sports program: the development of skills in the chosen sport. Some organizations misplace their emphasis, placing it on winning, rather than skills development.

That’s not the case with the teams that comprise the Marin Girls Softball League. Obviously, every team tries to win each time they take the field. But the emphasis is on skills development and the less tangible values of being a part of something special.

Exhibit 1 for this fact was the recent showdown between Marin County Athletic League powerhouses, Redwood and Tamalpais. The two high schools entered the game knowing that the winner would be tied with San Marin atop the MCAL softball standings. That’s enough drama right there.

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SportsDashboards Salutes: Kim Scarsella

Saturday, April 17th, 2010 by

Tamalpais pitching ace Kim Scarsella

As the honors mount, Kim Scarsella is our nominee to be the poster girl for the value of youth sports programs.

Kim is a mound mainstay for the Tamalpais High School Hawks, who sit atop the softball standings in the Marin County Athletic League.

Last week, Kim was cited by the Marin Independent Journal as the girl prep star of the week. It was an honor well deserved. But calling her the “star of the week” is an understatement of the magnitude of calling Mohammed Ali a fairly tough guy. Or saying Lady Gaga has a strange sense of style.

Kim Scarsella is more than a one-week wonder, she dominates a softball game the way the best pitchers do. Statistics never tell the whole story, but here are some numbers that hint at the exceptional season she is having:

During the week for which she was honored by the Marin newspaper, she defeated Terra Linda 6-0 while striking out 17 and then bested Novato 6-2 while chalking up 11 more K’s.

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SportsDashboards Salutes: Central Marin Chargers Cheer National Champions

Monday, April 12th, 2010 by

Remember the old days? Cheerleaders wore skirts that came below the knees, accompanied by long-sleeve wool sweaters with the team initial on the front. Sometimes, they waved pom-poms. And every once in a while, they led a cheer.

Folks, those days are gone. Like everything else, cheerleading has evolved. The outfits today permit the freedom of movement that’s required for cheerleaders to perform acrobatics and dance routines. These routines are so challenging they prove that these girls are not just pretty faces, they’re also talented athletes.

Epitomizing that evolution are the Central Marin Chargers Cheer teams. In 2009, their midget cheer team won the USA Junior Nationals championship in their division. Only to be outdone by their peewee counterparts, who not only won their division, but were crowned Grand Champions for achieving the highest score for their routine.
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SportsDashboards Salutes: Southern Marin Broncos, 2009 AYF Jr. Midget National Champions

Thursday, April 1st, 2010 by

The Southern Marin Broncos Jr. Midget team didn’t just win the American Youth Football national championship; they did it the hard way, beating the defending champs from Shabbona Park, IL, 16-0 in the final.

Marin County, California, is no stranger to football greatness. Dan Fouts, the Hall of Fame San Diego quarterback, and Pete Carroll, the fabulously successful college football coach, both hail from Marin. But the 12- and 13-year-old kids on the Jr. Midgets team accomplished something Fouts and Carroll never did: they won a national championship in youth football.

The video shows highlights of their championship game. The clinching touchdown run comes at the 2:50 mark. It’s a great run, but look at the blocking!

Check out the trophy presentation at about 4:30 into the video.

Diligent preparation and flawless execution gave the Broncos their title. SportsDashboards salutes them!

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Posted in AYF Football, SportsDashboards Salutes | 3 Comments »