Wednesday, November 11, 2020
The Observer | www.theobserver.com
Sports & Recreation
9
WITH
Jim Hague ogsmar@aol.com
Nutley clinches SFC Freedom White Division with historic win Before the 2020 high school football season began, Nutley High School head coach Steve DiGregorio had extremely high hopes. “I really thought we were going to be a good team,” DiGregorio said. “I thought we had some good experience on the line on both sides. I thought we had running backs that had some experience.” The returning players agreed. “I knew we would be a competitive team,” said senior captain Jake Walsh. “We had a lot of experience. We had a lot of good players.” But having experience and talent isn’t everything. “We just needed a lot of things that had to go right,” DiGregorio said. For one was a season. With the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic throwing everything for a loop, the Maroon Raiders simply needed to get on the field. In the case of the Maroon Raiders, it would mean getting on a brand new field, as the Nutley Oval underwent a picturesque overhaul complete with a new FieldTurf surface. But as the health concerns about the coronavirus eased a bit and state officials allowed high school sports to return to action, it was evident that there would be some provisions if high school football was going to exist in 2020. The NJSIAA ruled that there would be no state playoff this season and that football teams would be limited to an eight-game schedule to be completed by Thanksgiving weekend. “This season is so crazy,” DiGregorio said. “I told the kids to treat every game like it’s their last one. That they had to pick each other up and keep playing. We had to believe we were fortunate to keep playing and that we had to take it one game at a time.” With that in mind, the New Jersey Super Football Conference—Freedom White Division became a goal. “With nothing else to win, we had to take what we could get,” Walsh said. “I had a lot of confidence in my teammates,” said junior quarterback Matt Harbison. “If we would go out each game with heart and integrity, then good things would happen for us.” However, no one in their right mind – with the exception of the head coach – thought that the Maroon Raiders had a legitimate Continued on the next page chance of winning a
Photo courtesy of Michael Picardo
The Lyndhurst girls’ cross country team has enjoyed an incredibly surprising successful season. From left, are Lynn Doke, Tanveer Kaur, Emily Gabriel, Julia Sales, Ariana Perez, Tara Kibbe and Jimena Capurro.
Lyndhurst girls’ cross country enjoying surprising season By Jim Hague ogsmar@aol.com
T
he Lyndhurst High School girls’ cross country team was not expected to be a contender in 2020. That’s basically because veteran coach Michael Picardo had no idea what kind of a roster he was going to have – and Picardo had to deal with the obstacle of a coronavirus pandemic. “I had two seniors (Tanveer Kaur and Emily Gabriel) who worked hard during the summer and carried us,” Picardo said. “They had organized team workouts all throughout July and August. I was able to communicate with them through Zoom meetings. But they were the ones who got everyone together to run.” So Picardo had no idea how good his incoming freshmen would be. Picardo also didn’t know about some athletes who decided to change sports. Basically, Picardo had no idea about how his team would fare. A little more than two
months later, Picardo has a solid idea that the Golden Bears are indeed a good program once again. That’s because talented freshmen Lynn Doke and Julia Sales joined the program. And it’s because Tara Kibbe decided to join the cross country team after playing soccer last year as a freshman. The influx of new blood has enabled the Golden Bears to climb all the way to a second place team finish at the recent North Jersey Interscholastic Conference-Colonial Division championships at the Garret Mountain Reserve in Woodland Park. Doke finished first overall in 22:22, with senior Kaur fifth in 22:59 and junior Ariana Perez eighth in 23:20. The biggest setback in that race was that Kibbe lost her place in the race and had to regroup. “I just went the wrong way,” Kibbe said. “I realized when I saw no one behind me that I made a mistake. I actually ran into a coach who told me I was going the wrong way. I really didn’t want to stop running, so I just
turned and kept going. I saw how many people were in front of me.” Kibbe recovered somewhat to finish 22nd overall in a pedestrian 24:19. If Kibbe doesn’t lose her way on the course, the Golden Bears would more than likely won the race. Kibbe didn’t sulk long after the race. She managed to recover nicely to finish 22nd overall at the North Jersey Invitational, a race that included all of the schools in northern New Jersey and featured 300 runners. Kibbe finished the course at Garret Mountain in a brisk 21:16. “I didn’t think it would be anything like this,” Kibbe said of running cross country. “I was lucky to have people like Emily and Tanveer as role models. They worked me hard. It’s crazy, because I never even thought about cross country.” Doke has a league championship to build upon. “I had no idea what this would be,” Doke said. “I wanted to play soccer, but I hurt my foot. I didn’t know Continued on page 11
