Blog | Sports: The Hot Corner

Earlier this season we reported on the Long Island natives added to the Tewaaraton Trophy Watch List, that number has been dwindled to an official nominee list of 25 men and women this week. Once again, many Long Island natives are there:

-Shamel Bratton, Virginia – Junior (Midfield), Huntington Station, N.Y.
-Ryan Flanagan, North Carolina – Junior (Defense), West Islip, N.Y.
-Rob Pannell, Cornell – Sophomore (Attack), Smithtown, N.Y.
-Shannon Smith, Northwestern University – Sophomore (Midfield), West Babylon, N.Y.

Players at LI colleges
-Kevin Crowley, Stony Brook – Junior (Midfield), New Westminster, B.C., Canada
-Jordan McBride, Stony Brook – Junior (Attack), New Westminster, B.C

Keep paying attention to the men’s lacrosse team Hofstra fans, because things on the rest of the sports front in Pride Nation aren’t looking too bright. In late 2009, the university announced it was dropping its football program – a move that put a damper on any school morale.

Yesterday, basketball coach Tom Pecora announced his resignation because he is now the coach at Fordham University. Pecora spent 16 years at Hofstra as an assistant and head coach (nine at the helm). Many thought he would lead the Pride to new heights after the departure of Jay Wright, who has done wonders down at Villanova.

Instead, Pecora coached a mediocre basketball team to 155 wins (126 loses) and four appearances to postseason tournaments. No, not NCAA big dance tournaments – it was three NITs and most recently the College Basketball Invitational. I watched begrudgingly as Old Dominion beat Hofstra in the NIT quarterfinals in 2006 as I write a live in-game blog from press row. At least he kept me busy as sports editor of the Hofstra Chronicle.

Winning aside, Pecora is a good man. After the 2005-06 season, in which Hofstra won a school-record 26 games and two NIT contests, he re-signed to stay on the Island.

His first collegiate head-coaching job was at Farmingdale State from 1989-1992 and his 62-24 record is indicative of success. There’s no denying that Pecora can coach a basketball team, but in nine years Hofstra should have produced better results.

He leaves Hempstead having boatloads of unfinished business left on the court. Just one NCAA Tournament appearance would have been acceptable.

“Tom has been an excellent coach, a mentor to student-athletes and athletic staff members, and an outstanding ambassador for our university,” Hofstra athletic director Jack Hayes said in a statement. “We wish him well at Fordham University and we will begin the search for a replacement immediately.”

Earlier on Thursday, Pecora inked his new $650,000 deal with the Rams and spoke of his new school as a “sleeping giant,” just as Hofstra once was before he took over.

Sorry Tom, but Hofstra is still taking that nap.

Washington’s Stephen Strasburg wasn’t the only high profile draft pick that sat out last season because of contract negotiations. Ward Melville product Steve Matz, a second round selection by the Mets, waited anxiously while his agent and parents hammered out the business end of things.

This year, Matz is down in spring training and working out with the Mets and is excited about being stronger than he has in the past. Unlike Strasburg, Matz is coming into professional baseball from high school and has plenty of time to grow physically and mentally.

During a short stay in Port St. Lucie last year at the team’s practice facility, Matz met Carols Beltran, who introduced him to his personal trainers at the Professional Athletic Performance Center in Garden City.

“Beltran told him he was going to give him a trainer that turns boys to men,” said Lou Petrucci, Matz’s high school coach.

“This is the best my arm has felt,” he said.

Often seen with Jose Reyes, National’s pitcher and Long Island native John Lannan and Mets product and Hicksville native Cam Maron, Matz has been around some familiar faces at the facility.

Perhaps the most well known person he’s spoken to since being the Mets’ top pick is Sandy Koufax, who happened to be visiting Mets’ owner Fred Wilpon at Citi Field last season when Matz was there.

“I shook his hand,” said Matz, who spent time at two winter camps with the Mets this past off-season. “That whole day was nerve wracking. I was dealing with the whole media thing in the dugout. It was right after I got drafted.”

Petrucci recalls seeing Matz as a youngster pitch at the All-Pro practice facility in Bellport while taking lessons with former Major League pitcher and Long Island native Neal Heaton. He liked his arm action then, but quickly grew to love his dedication to the game.

The 6-foot-3 southpaw regularly reaches 93-94 mph with his fastball, and throws a devastating 72 mph curveball to throw off hitters. He won the Yaztremski Award as Suffolk County’s top baseball player last season. He compiled a 6-1 record and a ridiculous 0.47 ERA in 47 innings of work as a senior.

Former Ward Melville coach Ron Muscarella brought Matz up as a freshman to the varsity, where he saw 38 innings of work and threw the ball around 72 mph. He wasn’t a pro ball player just yet, but “it’s that work ethic that basically got him to the big leagues,” Petrucci said.

He made baseball a top priority in his life. Oddly, he didn’t throw much during the summer in 2007 and 2008, and started just one game during his sophomore year and only a couple his junior season thanks to growth plate issues.

He had a great senior season and the rest is history. Now, Petrucci said, Matz is like a caged animal, waiting to unleash himself during spring training.

“I think he’ll work hard at it,” he said. “His competitiveness and will to reach the highest level is something I haven’t seen in other kids before. There is a big league mentality and there is a big league work ethic and he has both.”

After games in high school Matz would regularly run two miles, one time specifically between double-header games against Lindenhurst, when his teammates were eating lunch.

Those are the stories they’ll be telling for years to come. Mets fans can only hope he’ll let them tell stories sometime soon.

Photos Courtesy Chris R. Vaccaro

Every year a gearthy list of the nation’s top collegiate lacrosse players are presented to the media to suggest who might win the Tewaaraton Trophy as the nation’s best player when the award is presented over the summer. And every year, there are plenty of Long Island natives who earned there way onto the “watch list,” as hopefuls to possibly with the award.

“The committee has done an outstanding job at selecting the top contenders across the country,” said Robert Sweeney, President of the Greater Washington Sports Alliance. “This year’s list represents 35 institutions, over 13 conferences encompassing students from 14 states, Canada and Australia, so if this is any indication of what is to come, I believe we are in store for an electrifying and intense season ahead.”

The award will be presented on June 3rd at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C.

Sorry, no guesses or suggestions about who will win – it’s too early to say. However, there are some interesting Long Island names on the list, including Jeff Cohen, who was a stud at Syosset, Collin Finnerty, who was the center of the Duke sex scandal three seasons ago, Shaylyn Blaney, who had an outstanding career at Ward Melville and Shannon Smith, who holds many Long Island records from her days at West Babylon.

Here are the names of Long Islanders on the watch list:

Women
Shaylyn Blaney, Notre Dame - Junior (Midfield), Stony Brook
Kaitlyn Carter, Adelphi - Junior (Midfield), Mineola
Corrine Gandolfi, Hofstra - Senior (Midfield), Smithtown
Grace Golden, William and Mary - Junior (Midfield), Manhasset
Emily Schaknowski, Delaware - Senior (Midfield), Wading River
Lauren Schmidt, Stanford - Junior (Midfield), Bay Shore
Shannon Smith, Northwestern - Sophomore (Midfield), West Babylon
Lacy Vigmostad, Northwestern - Sophomore (Defense), Northport

Men
Brian Caulfield, Albany - Junior (Attack), Bay Shore
Jeff Cohen, Harvard - Sophomore (Attack), Syosset
Craig Dowd, Georgetown - Senior (Attack), Northport
Collin Finnerty, Loyola Maryland - Senior (Attack), Garden City
Ryan Flanagan, North Carolina - Junior (Defense), West Islip
Brent Herbst, Siena - Senior (Goalie), Plainview
Rob Pannell, Cornell - Sophomore (Attack), Smithtown
Tom Perini, Lafayette - Junior (Attack), Huntington
Scott Rodgers, Notre Dame - Senior (Goalie), Wantagh
Steven Waldeck, Stony Brook - Senior (Defense), Levittown
Ryan Young, Maryland - Junior (Attack), Manhasset

People playing at Long Island colleges
Jay Card, Hofstra - Junior (Attack), Caledon, Ontario, Canada
Jordan McBride, Stony Brook - Junior (Attack), New Westminster, B.C.
Kevin Crowley, Stony Brook - Junior (Midfield), New Westminster, B.C.
Kim Williams, C.W. Post - Senior (Defense), Long Valley, N.J.

Photo courtesy of tewaaraton.com

Sports films have graced movie screens and televisions for years, but none have been about lacrosse – a game synonymous with the Long Island athletic scene. Things are about to change.

Crooked Arrows is the first feature film about the game and if you liked Remember the Titans or Mighty Ducks then Crooked Arrows is a stone’s throw from being in the same ballpark.

It’s a story about a young Native American man rediscovering his purpose in life by coaching a rag-tag reservation lacrosse team to the local prep championship. Backed by an all-star team of movie folk, who boast 50 feature films to their credit, Crooked Arrows looks to be the next big hit of the sports movie world.

Wondering if the story will work? Don’t worry. All signs are pointing in the right direction. The movie’s Facebook fan page went from 300 to 3,000 fans in a matter of days and people associated with the film are expecting hundreds of thousands to be interested very soon.

“They want to see the sport of lacrosse get to level where it deserves to be,” said Kyle Harrison, a current MLL All-Star on the Denver Outlaws and a former Tewaaraton Trophy and National Champion at Johns Hopkins. “By creating a main stream lacrosse film, the visibility for the sport will only grow, which is clearly a good thing. In the lacrosse world, we’re all very supportive of each other, and I know that once this film is made, the lacrosse world will come out in full force to support it.”

At a time when lacrosse is at an all time high, when people attended the NCAA lacrosse championships by the thousands and when many business publications suggest the game is the fastest growing sport in America, there’s no wonder that a movie about the game with Native American ties will be captivating audiences soon.

J. Todd Harris, one of the producers of the film, who has produced 35 other films in the last 15 years including Bottle Shock and Jeepers Creepers, senses the lacrosse world will rally behind such a film.
“It’s a wonderful story that people both inside and outside lacrosse are going to relate to,” he said. “I recognized lacrosse as a very tightly knit and booming niche.”

Joining Harris on the crew is Sports Studio’s Mark Ellis, who has helped make every major sports film in the last 20 years a thing of beauty (Miracle, Coach Carter, Invincible), as well as director Steve Rash, who is behind a number of films, with a fantastic range from The Buddy Holly Story to the Bring It On sequels.

Harris said more independently financed films are becoming increasingly marketing oriented, which hasn’t been a problem so far for Crooked Arrows since the staff has Reebok on board (so it must be good!), as well as a slew of well-known lacrosse people endorsing the product – everyone from John Tavares to Paul Rabil. It’s also not hard to excite the lacrosse community – if one person is interested they’re all interested.

The intriguing part of the movie process is the chance to invest. For Long Islanders, you still have the opportunity to sink your teeth into the movie business. While utilizing the community that movie affects most, this could be a watershed moment for independent films.

With investment units ranging from $10,000 to $1 million, it’s a unique opportunity to have your name associated with a film that could easily sit on a shelf next to Bend it Like Beckham, which grossed $33 million, or the aforementioned Remember the Titans, which grossed $116 million.

Learn more at CrookedArrowsMovie.com or join the fan page on Facebook and chat about the film with other lacrosse enthusiasts.