Thursday, October 30, 2014

IAC Large School North Boys Soccer All-Stars.

Dryden - First Team
M - Gabby Guisado
D - Tim Lewis

Dryden - Second Team
F - Jacob Lewis
M - Ali-Abel Ferretti
M - Padriac Iannello
D - Matt Horton


IAC All-Stars

North Large MVP: Alex Purcell, Lansing

First Team: F Hunter Haff, Union Springs; F Zack Marsh, Whitney Point; F Logan Enge Union Springs; M Gabby Guisado, Dyrden; M David Hodges Union Springs; M Danny Lapp, Trumansburg; M Ben Kutler, Lansing; D Tim Lewis, Dryden; D Danny Marquart, Union Springs; D Zack Martin, Trumansburg; D Sam Drake, Lansing; GK Bryce Stanhope, Lansing

Second Team: F Jacob Lewis, Dryden; F Evan DeGraw, Union Springs; F Jacob Cozzarin, Trumansburg; F Luke Field, Lansing; M Ali Abel-Ferretti, Dryden; M Andrew Stewart, Trumansburg; M Matt Hulsebash, Lansing; M Padraic Iannello, Dryden; M Tyler Ross, Union Springs; D Matt Horton, Dryden; D Austin Quick, Union Springs; D John Lasordo, Lansing; D Mitchell Taggert, Whitney Point; GK Meson Paz, Union Springs

Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Lady Lions move on In Volleyball Secitonals

Dryden's Volleyball Team will travel to Windsor on Thursday for the second round of the Class C Sectionals

Dryden 3, Waverly 2
Game scores: 29-27, 25-23, 26-28, 22-25, 25-14.
Dryden leaders: Vanessa Scott 2 aces, 8 kills, 1 assist, 1 block; Kayla Kucerak 6 kills, 17 assists; Madison Seamans 3 aces, 1 kill, 4 assists, 1 block; Katie Hoy 4 aces, 3 kills. Waverly leaders: Karleigh VanNess 2 aces, 12 digs; Hannah Place 3 aces, 8 kills, 21 digs; Erika Morales 5 aces, 4 kills, 9 digs; Sam Mennig 5 aces, 8 kills, 24 assits, 15 digs, 2 blocks. Records: Waverly 11-6.

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

State Delay Leaves Dryden Cheerleaders in Limbo

Dryden Courier

DRYDEN – Concerns over Dryden athletics were the hot topic at the district’s school board meeting Monday, October 27. During Athletic Director Bryan Ford’s update, he discussed issues regarding the Dryden cheerleading team and the hold up from the New York State Public High School Athletic Association to get the season underway. Over the summer, a decision was made to declare winter cheerleading an official sport, but the necessary qualifications needed to make that happen at Dryden are coming in at the last minute.
“Sadly, a lot of the direction for it has not come out yet,” said Ford. “There was a meeting that occurred Thursday of last week at the state level. They did declare cheerleading an official sport, but what that means was decided last week, and they haven’t given us the notices yet even though the sport starts on Monday.”
For a full report, see this week's Dryden Courier

Monday, October 27, 2014

Dryden girls fall in 'B' sectionals

Ithaca Journal

Dryden's girls' soccer team suffered its first loss of the season in the Section 4 Class B semifinals, falling 3-0 to top seed Seton Catholic Central; Lansing girls roll into Class C semifinals.

Genna Michitti scored all three goals to lead Seton Catholic Central to a 3-0 victory over Dryden in the Section 4 Class B girls' soccer semifinals on Saturday at BC United in Binghamton.
The Saints (14-1) advanced to this weekend's Class B final against defending state champion Oneonta. Dryden, ranked 16th in the state, suffered its first loss of the season and finishes 16-1.
After a scoreless first half, Michitti scored the game's first goal 10 minutes into the second half off a through ball from Mallory Fox. The sophomore forward would give Seton Catholic Central a 2-0 lead about five minutes later, scoring on a pass from Emily Purtell.
The Saints (14-1) put the game away with 22:34 left in the game when Purtell crossed the ball to Kaelyn Michitti, who dropped it to her sister for the game's final goal.
Seton Catholic Central goalie Maddie Williams finished with three saves.
Sarah Westcott made 14 saves for Dryden. The Saints outshot the Purple Lions, 25-5, and took four of the game's five corners.

Saturday, October 25, 2014

Taylor Bennett has powered Dryden girls into sectionals

Ithaca Journal

It makes absolutely no sense that a varsity soccer team with one eighth-grader, 11 freshmen and just one senior would have its sights set on the program’s first state championship.
But at 16-0 heading into Saturday’s Section 4 Class B semifinal at top-seeded Seton Catholic Central (12-1), Dryden’s girls’ team is in that exact position.
How can that be, you ask? One name: Taylor Bennett.
One of three Purple Lion juniors, Bennett is the gold standard in the girls’ game in this part of the state — maybe in the entire state. She has pushed this year’s youthful squad to greatness with a combination of consistent goal-scoring and tenacious, fierce defending from her center back position.
The former is nothing new for Bennett, who’s scored 175 goals in a career that started when she was in seventh grade. Last season, as a sophomore, she broke the school’s single-season scoring mark with 43 goals, eclipsing the old record of 34 set three years earlier by Leighann Bennett, her older sister and now a sophomore at Binghamton University.
But the defensive stance is a change for the powerful 5-foot-9 converted striker, who’s benefited from an increased strength training regimen. Her move to the back was born both of necessity, due to the make-up of this year’s young squad, and of thoughts to her soccer future. Taylor is among the top prep soccer players in the nation, and already has caught the eyes of national-team scouts, who see her as a back-line player as her career unfolds.
She has also verbally committed to attending Syracuse University after graduation in 2016, and the coaches there see her as a defender at the Division I level.
“No matter where I put her, she’s effective and she’s a threat,” Coach Janine Bennett, her mother, said earlier this week. “She can produce whatever I need her to produce.”
Never was that more evident than on Sept. 29 in an Interscholastic Athletic Conference match against rival Lansing, the defending Section 4 Class C champion. With about 12 minutes left in a scoreless game, Bennett took the ball from inside her own penalty area and bolted straight up the middle of the field, shrugging off defender after would-be defender before slipping the ball past Bobcats keeper Sarah Gisler.
The 80-yard, highlight-reel goal gave Dryden a 1-0 victory, and wowed everyone in attendance.
“That might have been the best individual goal that I’ve seen in the 10 years that I’ve lived in New York,” said former Lansing girls coach LaMarr Peters, who played at the college and professional levels and runs the Lansing-based WAZA Flo soccer club. “It was an absolute display of power, speed, technique and single-minded focus. She wasn’t going to be stopped. She got halfway through the run, and I knew she was going to score.
“And that’s doing it against a quality team, with a quality goaltender, and she did it like they weren’t even on the field,” Peters said. “It was magical.”
It was one of 24 goals she’s scored this season, down significantly from last year and from her freshman year, when she notched 33. But her strength on defense has made up for her decreased scoring, as Dryden has allowed just four goals all season while scoring a total of 54.
A soccer life
Bennett’s life, and that of her mother, basically revolves around soccer. In fact, high school soccer season is a time when the two can actually take a breath and relax a little.
“High school season is our down time,” said Coach Bennett, an All-American at SUNY Cortland and Division III player of the year in 1990. “Everything happens right after school, we don’t have to travel a lot. If it’s a home game, we’re home by 6, and if it’s away, we’re home by 7:30. But in the offseason, it’s much different.”
If her three-year-old vehicle could talk, it would agree — Janine has already put 160,000 miles on that 2011 Ford Flex, between at least three trips a week to Syracuse for club training sessions and games, and trips up and down the East Coast for tournaments with her National Premier League Region 1 squad.
Even with a seemingly never-ending series of soccer trips, she’s an honor student at Dryden High. It’s all about time management, something most kids don’t seriously deal with until college.
“I struggle with it because I want to just sit down at times and not do anything, but I still have to do my work,” Taylor said. “Keeping myself caught up is tough ... but my mom is a big help with that part. She pushes me, she holds me to higher expectations than most kids my age would be held to, and she treats me like she would if I wasn’t doing all the soccer stuff and was just in school.”
Should the Purple Lions continue to win and find themselves in the state final four, this year at SUNY Cortland, the Bennetts would have little time to rest before embarking on their next soccer journey. That will occur in late November, when she will travel to the rest of her Syracuse Development Academy teammates — and Janine, an assistant coach with the program — to Wilson, N.C., for the 80-team National League showcase tournament.
From there, 32 teams will head to Orlando, Fla., for the Disney Soccer Showcase, with the rest going to Las Vegas for the Players College Showcase.
In between, the Bennetts will be in Boca Raton, Fla., with the Syracuse-based Empire Revolution of the Olympic Development Program for a showcase tournament in front of national-team scouts. Bennett and Dryden teammate Abigail Barr have both played for the Revolution for several years and have traveled to national tournaments the last two summers.
Barr, also a junior, has played with Bennett since they were 4-year-olds in Dryden’s Sertoma league.
“We’re basically like sisters — we love each other, we hate each other, we’re stuck together, basically,” she said. “And she’s going to play D1 (at Syracuse) and I’m really proud of her, she definitely deserves every bit of it.”
Taylor has lots on her soccer plate, with her ultimate goal being a spot on the U.S. National team. It’s not just a pipe dream, according to Peters.
“The sky’s the limit,” he said. “She could be that local story that turns out beyond anybody’s wildest dreams, except for her own. She’s done everything, since she was 13, to be in a position to make a national team,”
For now, Bennett is focused on the tournaments at hand — sectionals, and perhaps states.
“The state championship is my big thing right now,” she said. “That’s the one thing my mom hasn’t gotten as a coach and I’d like get that for her before I graduate.”

Thursday, October 23, 2014

Deeley Goal enough for the win, Lions Advance to face Seton on Saturday

Dryden Lady Lions in Soccer Semis

IAC Swim

Lansing 103, Dryden 77
At Lansing
200-yard medley relay: Lansing (Allen, Adele J. Ferris, Dennis, Grace K. Ferris) 2:01.87. 200 freestyle: Grace K. Ferris (L) 2:11.53. 200 individual medley: Adele J. Ferris (L) 2:19.64. 50 freestyle: Erin Daley (D) 26.28. Diving: Meghan Matheny (L) 188.10. 100 butterfly: Adele J. Ferris (L) 1:02.07. 100 freestyle: Daley (D) 57.39. 500 freestyle: Marita Miller (D) 5:52.06. 200 free relay: Lansing (Ferris, Wigsten, Drake, Kieper) 1:54.00. 100 backstroke: Rory Allen (L) 1:04.90. 100 breaststroke: Grace K. Ferris (L) 1:14.03. 400 freestyle relay: Lansing (Kieper, Drake, Allen, Ferris) 4:02.22.

Dryden remains unbeaten in girls soccer

Ithaca Journal

Brittany Deeley scored three minutes into the second half to lift the undefeated Dryden girls' soccer team to a 1-0 victory over Newark Valley in the quarterfinals of the Section 4 Class B tournament at Dryden.
Abigail Barr assisted on the game's lone goal and Sarah Westcott made one save to earn the shutout for 16th-ranked Dryden (16-0), which had a narrow 4-3 edge in shots and took all seven of the game's corner kicks.
"We had a lot of opportunities to get into danger, but their keeper (Molly Graves) is great and did a nice job of intercepting passes and disrupting anything we put into the box," Dryden coach Janine Bennett said.
Graves also was credited with just a single save, but Bennett said both goalies were more of a factor in the game than the stats might indicate.
"The shots were minimal," she said, "but both keepers were intercepting crosses and getting their hands on the ball."
Bennett said she moved her daughter, junior center back and leading scorer Taylor Bennett, up to attack for the last five minutes of the first half. The all-state forward from last year, who leads Dryden with 24 goals, had a couple of opportunities but was mainly distributing the ball on her runs forward, the coach said.
Dryden advances to Saturday's Class B semifinals, where it will travel to Binghamton to face top-seeded Seton Catholic Central (12-1) at 3:30 p.m. The Saints had a first-round bye.


Dryden 1, Newark Valley 0
Newark Valley000
Dryden011
Dryden goals-assists: Brittany Deeley 1-0; Abigail Barr 0-1. Saves: Molly Graves (NV) 1; Sarah Westcott (D) 1. Shots-corners: NV 3-0; D 4-7.

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Bennett goal crowns Dryden

Cortland Standard

By TOM VARTANIAN
Staff Writer

DRYDEN — Neither wind, rain nor a determined Elmira Notre Dame soccer team could keep Dryden High girls from remaining undefeated Saturday night at Tompkins Cortland Community College.
Taylor Bennett scored with 19:25 left in the first half and the Purple Lions made that lone goal stand up for a 1-0 victory in the Interscholastic Athletic Conference Overall Large School Division Championship match. The state’s second-ranked Class B team improved to 15-0 with the win. Notre Dame slips to 11-3-1 as both teams now prepare for sectional action. Bennett’s 24th goal of the season came on one of the things that Notre Dame coach Steve Weber feared the most, a set play off a corner kick. Abigail Barr send a slicing ball into the wind where Bennett settled it in the box. A quick step to the right got the opening needed for Bennett to drive the 15-yard shot low between the goalkeeper and the right post.
“We’re not aggressive enough,” Weber said. “We stand and watch too much on corners. You have to be tougher in those situations. It’s more psychological, there’s nothing more technique-wise we can do.
“There isn’t a lot of consolation in coming here and losing by one goal three years in a row,” he added. “I am real disappointed. We didn’t play as well as we should have. We seemed intimidated at times.”
It was the only shot of five first half attempts to elude Mackenzie Maloney who made seven saves on the night for the Crusaders.
“It was important to strike first,” Bennett said. “The game could have gone either way. It really was very close.
“Tonight it was everyone playing together as a team for the team,” she added. “We were playing for each other. When you play like that, there are chances and you have to take advantage of those chances.”
“THE RAIN DIDN’T seem to affect the kids,” Dryden coach Janine Bennett said. “That surprised me as we stayed disciplined and focused against a very good Notre Dame team.
“Our set pieces are dangerous, especially with Taylor up from the back line,” she continued. “Taylor is hard to mark. I would have liked to have us converted a couple of more chances, but we did what we had to do.”
Daughter Bennett ripped a 40-yard direct kick on target in the 10th minute of play that Maloney made a nice save on. Barr also got a nice open look from 25 yards out with nine minutes left in the first half. Maloney grabbed and held the slippery ball.
Notre Dame got one early chance in the fifth minute of the match that was stopped by Dryden goalkeeper Sarah Westcott. It was her only save of the half and she recorded four saves in the shutout.
The only other good scoring chance was a corner kick into the box that Bennett went high into the air and headed back towards midfield.
While clinging to the 1-0 lead, Westcott made the most daring play of the night and it paid off. With 18:55 left in the match, Westcott came out of 25 to 30 yards out of the goal to help cut down a potential Notre Dame advantage. With an open net behind her, the freshman slid to block the ball, got up and cleared the ball over the sideline to end the threat.
“Sarah is a great field player,” Coach Bennett said. “She did play in the field for us last year. She has good feet so that was a big plus. She came out strong and she came out confident. It was a nice volley towards the sideline to give her time to get back in the goal.”
Earlier in the second half, Westcott held her ground to thwart a two-on-one Crusader break. Laurel Vargas got a good look at the goal, but Westcott got the angle and corralled the ball.
DRYDEN DID GENERATE some scoring opportunities in the second half, but Maloney stopped them all to keep her team in the match. The best chance came when Barr deked two defenders for an open look from 25 yards away. Her low shot skipped once on the wet turf before Maloney made the save.
While winning the IAC title is nice, both Bennetts would really like a Section 4 title, or more, this season.“We have to take it one game at a time,” Taylor Bennett said. “Next up is Newark Valley and we want to play the same type of game and keep going forward.”
“We did get one sectional co-championship, but Oneonta advanced on a shootout,” Coach Bennett said. “It’s hard because we play mostly C and D schools all season. We don’t too many of those B or larger size schools so we are not quite as sharp. That tougher competition helps when it comes tournament time. It does make it tougher for us.”
Dryden is the fourth-seed in the Section 4 Class B Tournament and hosts fifth-seed Newark Valley Wednesday for a 3:30 p.m. quarterfinal match.
Notre Dame is the second seed in Class C, joining sixth-seed Marathon (6-7) and seventh-seed Groton (5-7) in post-season play. The Crusaders will face the winner of Wednesday’s 3:30 p.m. match between 10-seed Bainbridge-Guilford (6-8) at Groton contest Saturday at 3:30 p.m.. Sixth-seed Marathon has a first round bye and travels to third seed Unatego (13-2) Saturday at 3:30 p.m.
IN THE BOYS’ Large School title match that followed, Elmira Notre Dame got goals from Aidan Sharma, Alec Cutler and Ryan Lanning to post a 3-2 win over previously unbeaten Lansing, the state’s number one Class C team.
The 10th-ranked team improved to 14-0-1 and snapped a three-year losing streak in the IAC title game to Lansing while the Bobcats drop to 15-1. Lansing had allowed just one goal all season under Saturday night.

Dryden Volleyball wins on Senior Night

Dryden 3, Groton 0
Game scores: 25-13, 25-12, 25-17.
Groton leaders: Allyson Black 4 assists. Dryden leaders: Vanessa Scott 4 aces and 4 kills, Kayla Kuceruk 4 kills, McKenna White 4 aces. JV: Dryden 2, Groton 0 Records: Groton 9-5

Monday, October 20, 2014

Varsity Football - Dryden 54 - Thomas A. Edison 21

From the Coach              

Photos from the Game
Photos from Night of Champions



Varsity Football vs. Thomas A. Edison
10/17/14


Dryden- 23-19-6-6 Final: 54
Thomas Edison- 0-0-14-7 Final: 21

First downs:
Dryden-11
TAE-11

Rushes:
Dryden- 30 for 288 yards
TAE-27 for 242 yards

Passing:
Dryden- 7-10 for 113 yards
TAE- 0-4-0-1

Total yards:
Dryden: 401
TAE: 242

Rushing leaders:
Dryden: Noah Welgoss 3 for 88 yards with two rushing touchdowns and
        Decker 7 for 106 yards, one touchdown
TAE: Jaevon King 12 for 66 yards, and Josh Cosgrove: 6-116 yards

Passing leaders:
Dryden: Noah Welgoss, 6-9 for 108 yards with one touchdown
TAE:  Jon Jones 0-4 no yards

Receiving leaders:
Dryden: McHerron 5 catches for 71 yards, 1 td catch
TAE: none

MISC:
Senior Noah Welgoss- 90 yard interception return for a touchdown, 65
yard td run, 58 yard td run
Senior Tackle Chris Simonet- 1 yard rushing td
Trevor Gardner- 32 yard field goal

        The Lions played with great passion and effort tonight versus the
Edison Spartans. Defense swarmed to the ball and forced 5 fumbles, recovering two of them. With the exception of an 80 yard run by Josh
Cosgrove of Elmira in the last quarter, the Dryden Defense gave up only
162 yards total offense behind the aggressive play of Stu Stahlman,
Connor O'Brien, Branden Decker, Chris Simonet, Brad Wacht, etc.
Noah Welgoss continued to excite the crowds with two touchdown runs, one interception for a 90 yard TD and a TD pass to Matt McHerron. Junior
Split end Matt McHerron continues to dominate in the passing game with 5 catches for 71 yards and one touchdown. Matt was all over the place tonight.
For more information, call Ralph Boettger at 607-342-2373 or at
Ralph

Jacob Czpranski TC3 Player of the week




Boys Modified Soccer Wraps up Season witn 4-0 win over Groton

From the Coach



Boys Modified Soccer at Groton
10/20/14

The boys modified soccer team finished their season with a shut out win against Groton yesterday evening.  Dryden won 4 to 0 with goals scored by Felix Abel-Ferretti and Mason Thomas.  Stephen Rachetta, Felix and Mason had assists in the game.  Alec Ortiz and Zach Sinnot had their first shut out of the season and both had big saves throughout the game!  Dryden scored a total of 34 goals through their 9 games this season.  All of the guys played great through the entire year and have proven they will be tough to beat at the varsity level.  Congratulations on a great season!

Sports Around The Lake: Undefeated Teams Exceed Expectations

Ithaca Times

It’s that time of the year again. The best part of the fall sports season is starting up soon, as this Wednesday Section IV will announce the brackets for sectional and IAC playoffs for boys’ and girls’ soccer. In this tournament, a lot of teams will have something big to prove. To me, no school has more to prove than the Dryden girls’ soccer team, who wrapped up their regular season Monday night by beating Lansing 1-0 and clinching a perfect 14-0 in the regular season. If there’s anything I’ve learned over the past year about high school sports, it’s that coaches typically downplay how good they are. Last week, I did a feature story on the team and while doing the article, head coach Janine Bennett, as well as her star player and daughter Taylor, made me believe that a sectional title was further out of reach than their record indicated.
Janine told me that with many of their players not playing year round meant that it would be difficult to hang with some of the talented B schools who do.
That may be true, but I’m not going to be fooled. The Lions may not be the most talented group in the section, but that team, which is mostly made up of freshmen and sophomores had a perfect season, beating very tough schools like Waverly and Lansing (twice). What’s most impressive is that they are doing this by limited the talented Taylor Bennett, who D1 bound already as a junior. Taylor is playing defense for the Lions, and leading the team in scoring, when she could probably be on the other end of the field scoring twice as many goals.
The reasons for her limitation this season is a smart one for her coach, and it makes the depth of this team all the more impressive. Don’t let the two Bennett girls fool you: I think this team is going to really make some noise in the sectional tournament, and quite possibly, in the state tournament as well.
The crazy thing too is that after this year, we very well may see a repeat performance from the Lions, who will only be one senior short in 2015. These girls have to know they are in the middle of something special, but that shouldn’t stop them from going all out and making this year the Year of the Lady Lions.
Tarbell Is Awesome
Last weekend at Trumansburg was a pretty cool night to witness. Homecoming is always a special time at high schools because watching any sport with a packed house of supporters makes that experience 10 times better.
Factor in football and for me, it’s a can’t miss event. I’ve looked forward to getting to schools’ Homecoming celebrations each week.
Trumansburg did things differently and it was just as great. Going 2-0 on the evening was the cherry on top, but the sundae was the brand new Tarbell Stadium - the million dollar athletic complex that officially opened its gates Friday afternoon.
It looks fantastic. The bleachers are high and long, the field is pristine, and the track is made of perfect surface - a great mix of soft, yet sturdy ground for running. I thought most things about the evening were really top notch. In one night, Trumansburg fans saw the first win on the field, the first official race on the track, and the first win under the lights. The night wasn’t without it’s blips - the lighting issue definitely needs to be looked into - but it was a terrific night to celebrate the community of Trumansburg and their athletic program. Football was a distant memory for one night, and it worked out just fine.
I’ll really be looking forward to the modified football game coming up soon where they will honor the senior players in a game at Tarbell. Hopefully the community will get their first football win at Tarbell soon.
It was a stadium years in the making, but it was worth the wait. A first class facility indeed.
Lansing Stays Undefeated
Besides Dryden girls, Lansing boys’ soccer is another team that remains undefeated this season.
The Bobcats had an impressive 4-0 over Trumansburg Wednesday to win their season series 2-0. As we all know, Lansing has not lost a regular season game since they got beat by Trumansburg a year ago.
In another case of coaches undestimating their team to me, Heck was unsure at the start of the season just how good his team would be. Well, right now, they have a better record than the team that finished second in the state last year. If that’s any indication, I think this group is just a good as that team.
Also like Dryden girls’, this team is incredibly young and also made up of a good number of freshmen and sophomores. This team is not going away anytime soon, and IAC teams will be dreading seeing Dryden girls’ and Lansing boys’ on the schedule for a long time.
In any case, with two elite teams in the IAC, we are certainly shaping up for what should be an excellent sectional playoff tournament.