Syracuse, N.Y. — Dozens of teams and hundreds of athletes and coaches from Section III got together to help kick off the spring sports season Wednesday night at the second of two syracuse.com spring media days at Cicero-North Syracuse High School.
Girls and boys outdoor track, lacrosse and crew, as well as boys and girls golf took center stage, with players and coaches posing for pictures, shooting TikToks and previewing the upcoming season with reporters.
>> Spring media day part one
Look for several stories, previews, photo galleries and videos from the two media days on syracuse.com over the next couple of weeks.
Here’s a sampling of some of the chit-chat from Wednesday night:
OnTECH track athlete Jailyn Brooks, on why he started boxing:
“I used to get bullied, so I wanted to take all the anger and convert it into something that was positive that wouldn’t, for me, have a negative effect on anybody that I’m around. It got bad at a point, but talked to my uncle, and then he got me into a boxing gym. Definitely don’t be afraid to speak up. Hurt people hurt people. I’ll say that.”
OnTECH track coach Maurice Clark, on why a big picture of Brooks greets visitors to the school as soon as they walk in:
“He’s the face of our school, for the moment, because he’s the guy. He’s the first face that you see entering the school. It’s a big, big plaque of him in last year’s track uniform because he was dominant. And track is a heavy sport at our school. I say he’s the face of the franchise. He’s the football star as well as the track star.”
Baldwinsville flag football coach Kathy Morse, who has led the girls basketball team to the sectional title game on Saturday, on how she’s changed since coaching the program to its last hoops title in 1995:
“Oh, I’m much more calmer than I was in ’95. Anybody that you would talk to from those teams would completely understand. I think I was a lot harder on the girls and things like that. I’ve really mellowed out. Times changed and I needed to also.”
Baldwinsville flag football player Gabrielle Awwad, who came up with the idea to purchase and hand out colorful bob wigs at media day in honor of Morse, who has a similar hairstyle:
“I think we just aspire to be like her and we just thought it would be funny because it’s like a trend on social media and that it would just be funny that we’d all match together. I didn’t think she’d be upset about it. Well, we brought it up to her first and we’re like, ‘Oh, would this be funny?’ And she was like, ‘Yeah.’ She’s easy-going and chill about funny things like this.”
West Genesee boys tennis player Ethan Gage, on how the Wildcats celebrated their season-opening win last year, breaking a 30-match losing streak and getting off to a season that concluded with a 6-5 mark:
“We all took a team trip to McDonald’s. It was a lot of fun. Everybody was super happy with one another. It’s been a while since we got the win. I don’t want to be negative, but it was shocking. We went into the season thinking, we’ll put our best foot forward, but ultimately we’ll have fun. So, of course, it was a surprise to see we were up. We pivoted from having fun to let’s get this thing done at all costs.”
STEAM girls track coach Michele Maciejewski, on he she team builds in advance of starting a new program:
“One of the ones that we did for our indoor season, we ran around downtown where our school is located and we looked at all the pretty lights and had hot cocoa at a local coffee shop. Boys and girls all together. Sprinters, distance throwers. I don’t think we utilize our downtown resources enough. And I just thought it would be fun to get everybody together and then just learn how to work hard but have fun while doing that.”
Vernon Verona Sherrill track athlete Cora Wheeler, on the pre-meet ritual of teammate Leah Maguire:
“Leah throws up in her hand every meet or when she’s nervous. She gets nervous and then she hits the line and if she has no garbage [can], she just does it in her hand.”
East Syracuse Minoa track athlete Madeline Carr, on driving feedback from her father/coach Mark, who was taking her to a lesson right after media day:
“I think he’s not ready because once I get my license, I kind of have my freedom. But he’ll get over it. [His advice is] mainly just not to hit a curb. That’s his main thing.”
Oswego girls lacrosse player Peyton Bond, on the added enjoyment of leading the basketball team to its first sectional title game since 2008 with sisters Devon and Kaelyn as her teammates:
“Some days [their relationship] is really good, some days it’s really bad. But we’re always there for each other. We know how to play together. Sometimes we get on each other a little too hard than we would with other teammates, just because we’re sisters and we know what each other have and we know our full potential with each other. But it’s really a blessing and I wouldn’t want to do it any other way.”
Cicero-North Syracuse lacrosse goalie Allison Spoto, on the expectations as her team goes for a third-straight sectional title:
“We’ll definitely approach it differently just because we have a lot of newer girls this year. So, watch a lot of film. You’ll figure out what we did wrong and you’ll really fix the stuff that we could do. We play a lot of competition during the season, so that also gets us ready for the playoffs. I don’t think there’s really any pressure. We just kind of go with the flow. We just kind of just show up and we’re ready to get the work done.”
Skaneateles lacrosse player Allie Michel, on celebrating coach Bridget Marquardt’s pending 400th career victory after she was stuck on 399 with a playoff loss to Westhill last season:
“We’re going to celebrate coach’s 400th win with a cake. Posters. We didn’t talk about being her 400th win last year when we played Westhill, but we all knew it was her 400th and we were so excited. We had to win it for her, but also for us. And when we lost, we felt so bad for her. That was supposed to be a huge win for her 400th. That would have been amazing.”
Overheard at syracuse.com’s spring sports media day 2: ‘Leah throws up in her hand’ (37 photos)
