The New Paltz Women’s Cross Country Team moved up one place from last year to take the 6th place team slot in the SUNYAC Championships at Cortland.  The Hawks were lead by Junior captain Danielle Harmon who placed 29th overall and followed by Senior Captain Lisa Cassaro in 34th place.  Freshman Nichole Wischoff finished 45th followed by freshman Jessica Abrams 55th place and Soph Sara Wenger 62nd place. The top seven was rounded out by Chanelle Santilli (63) who has been hampered with an IT Band problem for over a month and first year cross country runner Kate Frick (68) who is having an outstanding season.

The Women will be competing at the NCAA Atlantic Regional Championships in Geneseo New York this Saturday the 14th.

Left Lyndsey Lovinger & right Kerri Serkes receive flowers in recognition of 4 great varsity tennis years.

Friday 2nd October was our Senior Day. As Lyndsey would be graduating this fall, a semester early, we decided to move our Senior Recognition Day from the spring to the fall. This Senior Day must have inspired our team as we ran out 5-4 winners against NYU, a team I had not beaten in my time as head coach at New Paltz. In honor and recognition to both our senior captains I have published a few words of appreciated I recited at their awards ceremony. Again thank you Kerri and Lyndsey for all you have done for our women’s tennis program both on and off the courts.

The team applaud in honor and recognition for their Captains and fellow team mates.

“I would like to take this time to honor our two Senior Captains,
Kerri Serkes, Massapequa and Lyndsey Lovinger, Miller Place. Over the past 4 years both Kerri and Lyndsey have been role model student athletes both on the tennis courts and more importantly in the classroom. It has been my pleasure and honor to be their coach for the past 4 years. Their contributions to the program speak for themselves and were both major participants in our back-to-back Conference Championship in 2006/2007. Both show superb work ethic and sportsmanship on the courts, always trying to improve themselves with each and every practice.

Lyndsey will be graduating a semester early with a degree in Communications. She has been a major player in the continued success of our tennis program. A 4-year starter on the program over her 4 years she put together a record of
- 26-12 in singles, 31-14 in doubles
- 1st Team All-SUNYAC 2006 and 2007
- 2006 SUNYAC Conference Champion in 3rd doubles
- 2007 SUNYAC Conference Champion in 4th singles
- 2007 SUNYAC Conference Champion in 2nd doubles and has been on the SUNY Conference all academic list all 4 years
- 2009 Team Captain.

Kerri does still have one more semester on our team but we wanted to honor her today with her doubles partner, Lyndsey. Kerri will be graduating with a degree in Education. Again like Lyndsey a major player in the continued success of our tennis program. A 4-year starter on the team who like Lyndsey has put together impressive numbers both on and off the tennis court.
- 27-10 in singles, 13-10 in doubles
- 1st Team All-SUNYAC 2006 & 2008
- 2007 SUNYAC Runner-Up in 6th singles
- 2nd Team All-SUNYAC 2007
- 2006 SUNYAC Conference Champion in 6th Singles
- 2008 SUNYAC Conference Champion in 5th singles
- 2008 SUNYAC Runner-UP in 3rd doubles
- 1st Team All-SUNYAC 2008
- 2008 Tennis MVP award winner
- Back to back winner of the SUNYAC Chancellors Scholar athlete award winner 2007 and 2008
- 2 year SAAC representative for the tennis team and has been on the SUNY Conference all academic list all 4 years
- 2009 Team Captain

Both Kerri and Lyndsey will be sorely missed and I fully appreciate, and would like to thank them both for all they have done for New Paltz tennis. I wish them all the success in the future and I’m sure they will enjoy their remaining doubles matches together.

It’s been three weeks since we have began our journey as sophomores on the women’s basketball team. We are all taking new classes, some for our majors and some in subjects that we enjoy. While this year will be significantly different from last year, with new players and new goals, we are extremely excited for the season to begin. We have all been working hard in the off season in order to fulfill our goals as a team.

Sophomore Class 2012 – Zoe, Bridget, Irwin, Clifford, Stef , Sam

The 2009 Women’s XC team is shaping up to be the best team in schools history.  With top returners Lisa Cassaro, Danielle Harmon and Sara Wenger accompanied by a large contingent of talented freshmen and transfers, the women are poised for a great season.

Our pre-season rail trail 3k time trial gave us a good indication of who had put in a solid summer of training.  Freshman Nikki McCarthy (Wallkill) looked very strong leading  Danielle Harmon (Pearl River),  Lisa Cassaro (West Islip), Nicole Wissler (Mineola), Nichole Wischoff (Cooperstown), Alex Berenis (Saratoga) and Christina Bartonicek (Berne) who rounded out our top seven.  The majority of the girls looked very fit and prepared for the hard work to come. 

Their first test came on Sept 1st at Chadwick Lake State Park against Mt St. Mary’s College in Newburgh.  The Mount is building a new program so the girls were uncertain of what they would face.  The strategy was to get out the first mile and settle into a tempo paced run for the final two.  The NP Women swept the first 14 places led by Nikki  and Danielle in 20:02  and followed by a group of four (Lisa C. , Sara W. , Nicole W. and Chanelle S.) in 20:58.  All of our runners looked under control and running within themselves at the finish.

The Vassar Invitational followed closely on the heels of Mt St Mary and my hope was that everyone did not expend too much energy at our first race.  The Women have never finished higher then 4th at Vassar so our goal was to move up and be competitive with Vassar.  At the start Danielle and Nikki got out quick chasing Vassar All American Joahnna Spangler.  After them there was a large group of Vassar runners followed closely by New Paltz.  Coming out of the back woods with 1K to go Danielle held a solid second place behind Spangler but Nikki fell off the pace fighting stomach cramps.  Lisa C. finished 2nd for NP and eighth overall, Chanelle S. finished a surprise 11th overall and third NP runner.  Sara Wenger was 13th overall and 4th NP runner, Nichole Wischoff was our final scorer in 14th a great collegiate debut.  Christina Bartonicek and Kate Frick (Red Hook) rounded out our top seven in 15th and 17th place respectively.  

The Women placed second overall and it was there highest placed finish to date at the Vassar Invite.  My hats off to the Vassar women who put their second through 6th runner in front of our 2nd.  Congratulations to Danielle for an outstanding performance with a 61 second improvement over last years race and to all the women for an outstanding effort.

This weekend (Sept 19th) we will travel to the Bard Invitational where the Women’s 5k race will go off at 12 noon and the Men’s race will go off at 12:45pm.

Lindsey Garyn helped the Hawks to 9-0 victory in the SUNYAC opener against Plattsburgh and a first place finish at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institution (RPI) Tournament. She won her third singles match against Plattsburgh 6-1, 6-0 and in first doubles she teamed up with Stephanie Schara for an 8-3 match win. In the RPI Tournament, Schara and Garyn posted a 2-1 record in doubles and went 3-0 in third singles. She defeated players from Hartwick, St. John Fisher and RPI.

Gina Ciccarelli class of 2003

A new feature we will be continually updating is our “Where are they now” section. This follows and updates where our alumni are based, what they are up to and giving other alumni a chance to reconnect.

Our first player in this feature is Gina Ciccarelli class of 2003. Gina was a major player throughout her senior year anchoring the bottom half of our line up. Gina played #6 singles on our historic record-breaking SUNYAC Conference Championship winning team of 2002. She narrowly lost in the final of the #6 singles conference championships, but her points tally over the championship weekend help our program and the college to win its first ever SUNYAC Conference Championship. Gina also spent the 2005 season as assistant coach to the New Paltz Tennis program.

Gina is currently living in Arizona and works as a Guidance Counselor at Safford High School, Safford, Arizona. “I have been here since July of 2008. I love my job and I am currently helping coach the girl’s and boy’s JV and varsity tennis team at the high school.  I am engaged and going to be married in June of 2010”.

Gina’s Email:

ciccareg@yahoo.com

Just quickly want to thank all the parents who took time out to watch our 8-1 win over Union College on Saturday 11 April. Although the weather was very cold and windy your support was much appreciated by the team. We look forward to seeing you at our remaining home games.

Our match away at Stevens saw the team go down by 6-3. A really close fought match on a bitterly cold and windy day.  Stevens Tech has some great views of Manhattan. Their campus is situated opposite Manhattan in the town of Hoboken, NJ and has some spectacular views of the city.

Still smiling after a close loss to Stevens

We finished our spring season last weekend with an upper vs. underclassmen scrimmage.  The upperclassmen came out with a 3-0 victory in some hard fought action.  Our spring season was a great success.  Everyone worked hard and improved at different aspects of their games, and are anxiously awaiting the 2009 season!  Up next is our annual alumni game on March 28.  So far, 12 alums will be joining us for some good volleyball, a great dinner, and lots of laughs.  We’re looking forward to it!