The return of the birdcage has been an unexpected, but greatly appreciated, part of the boys’ basketball season. After a rough year last year, many questioned whether or not the birdcage had been permanently damaged. But that question has undoubtedly laid to rest as at each home game the birdcage is packed and ready to cheer. The birdcage has been a real sixth man for the team that has gone 2-1 at home and 3-2 overall. The student section has seemingly even found its way into the heads of the opposing players with their chants during foul shots and at other crucial parts of the game. The return of the birdcage has eliminated most of the sting of the 2-17 record of the previous year’s team and has filled the team with energy and excitement.

This year’s birdcage has taken it a step beyond the rest with their pre-game planning. Twice this year the birdcage has planned a white out and a purple out, where all members of the birdcage wear white or purple, and both times have been extremely successful. This year’s group has even resorted to singing songs from SpongeBob, and incorporated it into the favored cheers of the past. Purple nation has truly been one of the great surprises of this year’s season, along with the early success of the team itself. At the moment, the future of the program, and the birdcage itself, seems bright, and full of noise.

If a coach wants Ron’s help in training their teams all they have to do is contact him and ask, he is always glad to help and enjoy the experience. The gym is a place to train but it’s also a place to learn life lessons because, just like in sports, you aren’t given the starting spot on the team for showing up, you have to do the work to get there. He has helped kids for many sports prepare for college, and all the kids always come out of the training better then when they went in. All he asks for from the kids is a signed picture of them in uniform or on the field so that he can hang them up around the gym in his hall of fame of sorts to those kids who trained hard and gave it their all. He offers college and high school athletes a special $50 membership over the summer, and to those who can’t afford the membership Ron allows them to come in the gym and train with him for free.

In the fall season Ron runs a joint 360 Combine with different sports trainers for high school athletes from freshmen year to junior year to not only get in shape but also to help show college recruiters the potential of the kids. The combine is located throughout the capital region and is designed for high school and college students. Ron has been helping the community for years now and has never asked for anything in return; he is just another good guy who just wants to help kids and athletes train and work hard.

If you ever want to stop by the gym and see if Ron will train you to his address is 18 Drywall Lane, Voorheesville, or you can check out his web site online at .

Some people under estimate cross country, to them it’s just a whole lot of running, but to those people I say “you have no idea”. Cross country is 3.2 miles of mental toughness and athletic ability. Cross country courses are all different, some are full of hills, some have a few hills,others are flat and some are a mixture. But one thing is for sure “All that it takes is all that you’ve got. “ There are no benches and no time outs.

The boys and girls cross country team took part in 17 races this season. The Voorheesville girls cross country team has a long history of success; they made it to the state meet in the 2008 season, 2009 season and came in second at sectionals last year. This year’s team unfortunately had a slow start to the seasons; we had lost our number three runner to graduation, and two other varsity runners. Also, Hurricane Irene did no justice to the courses. Three words sum up the season: mud, mud and more mud. Cross country isn’t like most sports because the varsity teams is based purely on ability and can change week to week. On Tuesdays varsity and JV run together and the top seven from Tuesday’s race run varsity at the Saturday invitational. Also, the scoring is different; the lower the score the better and the top 5 runner’s scores add up as the teams score. But the next two runners are important because they take the place of someone having a bad day or displace otherteams.

Sawyer Cresap started the season off with a win for the blackbirds, coming in 1^st out of 36 varsity division one girls at the Fonda Fultonville invitational, Labor Day weekend. The varsity girls’ team of Michelyn Little, Sawyer Cresap, Courtney Reilly, Robin Wakeley, Faith Cunningham, Carla Planz and Allegra Fasulo won the Queensbury invitational on September 24^th, out of 8 teams and 68 varsity runners. This was a big win for the team, because we had won this meet three years in a row. The varsity team of Michelyn Little, Sawyer Cresap, Courtney Reilly, Robin Wakeley, Faith Cunningham, Maeve Brennan and Anna Norris, came in 7^th out of 18 teams at the big Burnt Hill invitational on October 15^th. Over all it was a very successful year for the Voorheesville girls cross country team, we came in fourth out of 11 teams in the colonial council meet. Also, the top 10 runners, Michelyn Little , Sawyer Cresap , Courtney Reilly , Robin Weakeley , Faith Cunningham , Carla Planz , Allegra Fasulo , Maeve Brennan , Alex Relyea and Mackenzie Powell finished the year off coming in 6^th out of 15 teams at sectionals at SPAC on Friday November 4^th.

The boys cross country team had a great season. This year the boys tried very hard to get as close to the top as possible. Joe Becker carried the team coming in 1^st out of 97 at our home invitational on September 10^th. He also won the Queensbury invitational out of 76 boys for the second year in a row. Joe would have a great year finishing strong at the end of every race. Joe came in third out of 70 at the Colonial Council meet and he would also be the fifth and final individual boy to make it to states out of 173 class C section two varsity runners. But Joe wasn’t the only one to have a great season. The entire boys’ team ran their hearts out, knowing that they would lose four out of the seven varsity boys at the end of the year. The varsity team of Joe Becker, Quinn Treadgold, Breaden Morrison, David Vandervort, Mark Dollard, Evan Treadgold and Andrew Maloney came in 4^th out of 8 teams at the Queensbury invitational. The same team finished 11^th out of 22 at the Burnt Hills invitational. The JV and varsity boys would combined and finish 3^rd out for 6 for the colonial council league standings.  Finally , the top ten runners; Joe Becker , Quinn Treadgold , Evan Treadgold, Breaden Morrison, Ben Denn, Jack Weakley, David Vandervort, Mark Dollard , Andrew Maloney and Richard

Decker would finish the year off by coming in  7^th out of 20 class C schools during the sectional championships last Friday.  Congratulations to both teams and good luck for those runners who qualified for States to be held on November 12.

One of the best things an athlete can do after an injury has healed is to let it all go and just pretend they were never injured. Unfortunately, this is something that is easier said than done, and it can take time for an athlete to fully trust in a healed body part. The best way for an athlete to regain his or her confidence is to crawl before they walk and walk before they run. In other words, start small; start with small, simple drills. Next, move on to more complex and more active drills, then, move on to a practice with a team. Practice is extremely important, being that it is a confidence builder. Confidence, for athletes, is one of the most important things to have. Confidence will push an athlete to his or her highest level and its confidence that can help an athlete regain what was lost during the injury. Finally, get back into the game!

Furthermore, one of the most important steps that an athlete can take to overcome the mental effects of a sports injury is to realize that they are fully healed. An athlete needs to come to the realization that the time they took off from the sport, or the work they did in physical therapy, was enough for them to be fully healed. Also, if an athlete purposely holds themselves back, or over relies on a part of their body that has not been injured (such as putting extra weight on your left leg to take weight off a previously injured right leg) another injury can occur. The idea of the strength of one’s mind is a key aspect to overcoming the destruction of confidence and fear of re-injury brought on by a sports injury.

While an athlete may appear to be healed, or even better than before, on the surface; an athlete can be lacking confidence in their abilities, and fearful of a re-occurrence. Although this can be damaging to an athlete’s performance, it can be combated as well. The most important thing that an athlete needs to comprehend is that they are fully healed and they’ll be ok. Furthermore, just like in rehabilitation from the injury, an athlete has to start small and build up. Doing so can build confidence and prepare the athlete to return to a vigorous training schedule. Recovery from a sports injury simply takes a sound body and a sound mind.

Read more at http://www.lpch.org/DiseaseHealthInfo/HealthLibrary/adolescent/sis.html

The birds played a great game against Taconic Hills only to lose by a point, mostly due to a lack of field goals and two point conversions. The next game was against Chatham, one of several teams that Voorheesville is very competitive with in football.Unfortunately the team didn’t play to the best of its ability that game and ended up losing by a landslide. After Chatham they played their next opponent, Watervliet, where the birds lost for the third time in a row.

Then the Blackbirds managed to climb out of the gutter they found themselves in by beating Canajoharie the next game. They also came out with a win at the homecoming game against Coxsackie, which ended up being a very close game in the fourth quarter. After homecoming they played Fonda, another big rival. Voorheesville lost again to Fonda, who had one of the best records in the section at the time. The last game of the season was against Ichabod Crane. This turned out to be the Blackbirds’ best game of the season, with the end score being Voorheesville 56 Ichabod 16. Whether it was the several injuries that the team had to deal with throughout the year that made the season turn out the way it did, or it was just plain bad luck, the end result for the season was 3 wins and 4 losses. We wish the team best of luck as they continue to play a few more crossover games to finish out the year.

Despite the football teams struggles, they have gotten back on track under the leadership of seniors such as Donald Case, Caleb Cummings, Mike Chiseri, and others. The team has been able to bounce back from three consecutive losses and has rolled out two consecutive wins against Coxsackie Athens and Canajoharie. Despite the early struggles, the football team has high hopes for a deep run into sectionals.

After a successful regular season, but disappointing post season last year ,the Blackbirds boys soccer team is looking to bounce back. The Blackbirds are led this year by seniors David Suozzo, Connor Weightman, Eric Weinstein, and Colin Prendergast. The Blackbirds are currently 7-3-1 with a one home game remaining. This is an astounding record seeing as Voorheesville is the smallest school in the Colonial Council.

The golf team is having yet another successful, yet under the radar, season. Recently they won the Class C/D team title for the third straight year. Also one of their golfers, Matt Parrottino, just recently qualified for the Section II state championship golf team, that will compete this coming spring at Cornell University.

Overall, the Voorheesville Fall sports teams have shown talent, maturity, and competitiveness. The fall teams have started the year strong and the school is looking forward to more successes from fall teams and the other teams. With the winter season starting soon Voorheesville has a lot to look forward to.

This year the Blackbirds were led by senior captains Brittanie Denman, who had fourteen points in the team’s last game, and Jane Pritchard. The Blackbirds’ main scoring threats were two six footers, Anna Feller and Sarah Madden, who had seventeen points and seven rebounds against Gananda. Brittanie Denman was the team’s main three point shooter and Pritchard was the team’s point guard and ball handler. The team plays a fast pace style that is interesting to watch and made games exciting. Over the season, the Blackbirds won many close games and won some blowouts too, showing their ability to perform under pressure.

The future looks bright for the Lady Blackbirds who return all but too players from this year’s team and will see Jennifer Cillis return to the court after recovering from a torn ACL shortly before the start of sectionals. The Lady Birds will return five guards who all played a supporting role and will need to incorporate incoming juniors that spent their sophomore year on the JV team. All in all, the future looks bright for a Blackbirds team that hopes to return to the state tournament next year.

Since then local players have been doing a large amount of fundraising, including a pancake breakfast, and can drives. The fundraising is needed in order to pay for things such as a coach, transportation, uniforms, and equipment. The fundraising so far has been very successful, and there are plans for more fundraising events in the future.

Sign ups for lacrosse started about a month ago, and there has been a good number of sign ups for the team. There are people interested in signing up in grades 9, 10, and 11. A substantial number of the sign ups are 10th graders, which is good, because it shows interest, however it would be nice to see a few more sign ups from other grades.

There will be an interest meeting for the lacrosse team this Thursday, March 3 in the High School cafeteria from 4-5. Practice for lacrosse starts Monday, March 7. Sign up forms are available in the health office.

On a closing note, I would like to thank the Board of Education for giving the lacrosse players a chance to play for their school this year, and hopefully for years to come.

The Blackbirds finished with a 3-1 overall out of conference record, with the one loss coming to the class A school New Hartford. The team won the Spa Catholic Tournament over the Christmas break. At that tournament they had an average margin of victory that was well over double digits. The tournament was a key confidence booster because the Blackbirds were able to go on the road and beat bigger schools such as Hudson and Saratoga Catholic.

It was a similar story in conference as the Blackbirds went 10-4 while going up against schools in higher classes. The Blackbirds started the year with a key victory over a talented Watervliet team at home by 10 points. They then continued on a roll until the Schalmont home game where they lost by five points. The Blackbirds then lost again to Watervliet but were missing key players Mike Young and Anthony Crisafulli. The Blackbirds then bounced back and were able to beat a skilled Schalmont team on the road in overtime after being down by over ten points.  The Blackbirds remaining two losses came to class B Cohoes and class A Lansingburgh in which both games the birds were missing at least one regular starter. A 10-4 Colonial Council record is considered good for any team but, given that Voorheesville is the smallest school in the council, this is considered an exceptional achievement.

The Blackbirds consistently saw points production from Dylan Henzel, Nico Church, and Mike Young. Defensively, Anthony Crisafulli served as the shutdown defender who frequently guarded the fastest guard on the other team. In addition, Mike Young also would guard one of the opposing team’s best players. The defensive play of these two players was key in many of the Blackbirds’ victories. The Blackbirds relied on tall, strong players such as Colton Dlugolecki, and Joe Vogel to grab rebounds and protect the paint. These two players also played a key role on this team that had an excellent season and has a very bright future.

The team’s top four golfers this year based on average score were R.J. Cave, Matt Parrottino, Kyle Russell, and Will Smith. Their averages for the season were as follows: R.J. 38.8, Matt 39.7, Kyle 40.7, and Will 41.9. Their scores went toward a team overall average score for the season of 44.4. The team had an overall winning percentage on the season of 84.6%.

The team is happy with the outcome of their season this year, and what they accomplished. The team will be losing four seniors this year, three who were top scorers on the team this year. However, it is believed that the team will be able to replace them, be competitive, and win sectionals, because a majority of the team is returning. The team and the school will be looking forward to next year, and hoping for more great things from the golf team.