Looking back on 2020 in local sports

Looking back on the year in local sports is not as enjoyable this year as it has been in the past. No one could have imagined that we’d still be without local competition nine months after the initial cancellations, but here we are. Competition is finally set to begin in a few days at the local high school level with bowling, boys swimming and alpine skiing being the first sports to return Jan. 4.

When considering what did happen in the few months we had local high school sports this year, the standouts are the Newfield basketball programs. Both the boys and girls teams were state-ranked and finished the season with dominant records.

The girls team, led by twin sisters Katie and Kelly Moravec, had a 20-2 record, reaching the Section IV semifinals. The boys team won the Section IV Championship with a 21-2 record, and both teams won the IAC Championship together for the first time in 40 years.

Throughout the season, players on both teams mentioned how motivating it was to see the other succeed. With the roaring Trojan crowd behind them, Newfield basketball as a whole was the definition of dominant.

However, we didn’t get to see just how dominant. After the boys team defeated Watkins Glen in the Section IV finals, the state tournament was canceled due to COVID-19. It was a deflating way to end the season for a team that had state championship aspirations, and head coach Chris Bubble gave his thoughts to ESPN Ithaca shortly after the cancellation.

“We didn’t have the end result necessarily. However, we had an incredible season, one that you could hold up and say, ‘Wow, that was a really great basketball team,’” he said. “The finish might not have been what we were hoping, but we ended with a win. Typically, that only happens when you’re the state champion. So, to end with a win, even though it wasn’t the win we were hoping for, is something to celebrate.”

Tompkins County also had a strong showing in wrestling, with Kyle Willard from Groton and Matthew McKewin-Bates from Dryden winning IAC Championships in January. Willard later reached the Section IV finals along with Dryden’s Bobby Brotherton, but it was eighth-grader Danny Parker from Ithaca who was the lone county wrestler to win a sectional title in February.

Despite his low seed in the tournament and it being his first year at the varsity level, Parker came out on top and became the first Ithaca wrestler since 2017 to win a Section IV title. He told Tompkins Weekly earlier this year that the results certainly exceeded expectations.

“My goal this season, being an eighth-grader, was to have a.500 record,” Parker said. “I wanted to win more than half my matches. To come out with my hand raised in the finals match was a great feeling.”

Track and field was a sport in which Tompkins County shined above the rest in Section IV. Lansing’s Sam Panzer, Mackenzie Stark, Catalina Zaloj, Gwen Gisler and Kyle Reid all won events at the Section IV Championship as both the boys and girls placed second as a team.

Dryden’s Jakob Greenwood and Bryant DePaull, Ithaca’s Alexander Simpson, Makayla Podufalski and Elinor Kops, and Trumansburg’s Quaylen Lamarre, Gracie Wright, Makenzie Masters and Glenn Parker all took home Section IV titles as well.

Gisler and Greenwood went on to have top-10 finishes at the state championships, capping off record-setting careers at their respective schools.

Ithaca boys swimming had a spectacular season after a coaching change, winning the Section IV title and sending four individual swimmers and three relay teams to the state championship.

As for bowling, Dryden placed sixth at the IAC Championships in the program’s first season, with then-sophomore Eddy Pietrasz tallying the best score at the event. The Lansing boys team placed second as a team behind then-senior Ethan Calupca’s second-place finish.

At the college level, this year was looking to be a magical one for Cornell University hockey. For the first time in the school’s history, both the men’s and women’s hockey teams were ranked first in the nation. Then, right as the national championships were about to begin, the postseason was scrapped, preventing both teams from reaching historic heights.

Head coach of the men’s team Mike Schafer gave ESPN Ithaca his reaction to the abrupt ending to the season.

“This is uncharted territory for everybody,” Schafer said. “You’re used to your season being ended. It’s always a sad time but not this way. It’s tough. To get this kind of team, it’s a three-, four-, five-year process of recruiting all the different types of players, training them, developing them. It stings an awful lot, not for just us, but also our women’s hockey team.”

It was not all bad for Cornell men’s hockey though, as Morgan Barron and Alex Green went on to sign National Hockey League contracts with the New York Rangers and Tampa Bay Lightning, respectively. Amy Curlew of the women’s team also signed with the Toronto Six of the National Women’s Hockey League.

You might have to dig deep into the memory banks of this year, but there was quite a bit of athletic success in Tompkins County in 2020, despite only having two and a half months of sports. With high school sports returning in a few days and college sports hopefully returning in the coming months, we’re on our way back to normalcy.